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cast-iron architecture

(Encyclopedia)cast-iron architecture, a term used to designate buildings that incorporate cast iron for structural and/or decorative purposes. After 1800 cast-iron supports were exploited as an alternative to mason...

Baldung, Hans

(Encyclopedia)Baldung or Baldung-Grien, Hans häns bälˈdo͝ong, –grēn [key], c.1484–1545, German painter and printmaker, active mainly at Strasbourg. He was surnamed Grien or Grün because of his fondness fo...

Port Harcourt

(Encyclopedia)Port Harcourt härˈkərt, –kôrt [key], city (1991 est. pop. 362,000), SE Nigeria, a deepwater port on the Bonny River in the Niger delta. It is an industrial and commercial center where steel and ...

Orley, Bernard van

(Encyclopedia)Orley, Bernard van bäˈrənt [key], c.1491–1542, Flemish painter. In 1515 he was settled in Brussels, where he became court painter to Margaret of Austria, regent of the Netherlands, and to her suc...

Ottawa, cities, United States

(Encyclopedia)Ottawa. 1 City (1990 pop. 17,451), seat of La Salle co., N central Ill., at the confluence of the Fox and Illinois rivers, in a fertile farm area; inc. as a city 1853. The city has diversified agricul...

vinyl plastics

(Encyclopedia)vinyl plastics, group of thermoplastics used in molded products, flexible tubing, material for raincoats, and laminated safety glass. Vinyl plastics are polymers and copolymers of vinyl derivatives (i...

Silk Road

(Encyclopedia)Silk Road, ancient overland trade route linking Asia and Europe, consisting of a network of caravan routes running from China across central Asia to the shores of the Mediterranean. Its starting point...

Gehry, Frank Owen

(Encyclopedia)Gehry, Frank Owen gĕrˈē [key], 1929–, American architect, b. Toronto, Ont., as Frank Owen Goldberg. He is widely considered one of the finest and most artful of contemporary architects. In 1947, ...

liquid

(Encyclopedia)liquid, one of the three commonly recognized states in which matter occurs, i.e., that state, as distinguished from solid and gas, in which a substance has a definite volume but no definite shape. T...

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden

(Encyclopedia)Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. Part of the Smithsonian Institution, the museum was designed by Gordon Bunshaft to house 6,000 pieces of the enormous art collection amassed by ...