-Andy Warhol-

Andrew Warhola (August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987), better known as Andy Warhol, was an American artist and a central figure in the movement known as Pop art. After a successful career as a commercial illustrator, Warhol became famous worldwide for his work as a painter, an avant-garde filmmaker, a record producer, an author, and a public figure known for his membership in wildly diverse social circles that included bohemian street people, distinguished intellectuals, Hollywood celebrities and wealthy aristocrats. A controversial figure during his lifetime (his work was often derided by critics as a hoax, or "put-on"), Warhol has been the subject of numerous retrospective exhibitions, books, feature and documentary films since his death in 1987.

BIOGRAPHY

Childhood and early career

Andy Warhol was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Andy was the third child of his parents, Ondrej (Andrew) Warhola (the surname was spelled Varchola in Europe, and was modified after immigrating to America) and Julia Warhola, née Ulja (Julia) Justyna Zavacky.[citation needed] His parents were working-class immigrants of Lemkos-Rusyns (Ruthenian) ethnicity from Mezőlaborc, now Medzilaborce, of Austro-Hungarian Empire (now in northeast Slovakia). Warhol's father migrated to the USA in 1914, while his mother joined him in 1921, after the death of Andy Warhol's grandparents. Warhol's father worked in a coal mine. The family lived at 55 Beelen Street and later at 3252 Dawson Street in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh. The family was Byzantine Catholic and attended St. John Chrysostom Byzantine Catholic Church. Andy Warhol has two older brothers John and Paul.

In third grade Warhol had St. Vitus' dance, a nervous system disease causing involuntary movements which is believed to be a complication of scarlet fever, and which causes blotchiness in skin pigmentation of his skin. He became somewhat of a hypochondriac, developing a fear of hospitals and doctors. Often bed-ridden as a child, he became an outcast among his school-mates and bonded with his mother very strongly (Guiles, 1989). When in bed he drew, listened to the radio and collected pictures of movie stars around his bed. Warhol later described this period as very important in the development of his personality, skill-set and preferences.

Warhol showed an early artistic talent and studied commercial art at the School of Fine Arts at Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh (now Carnegie Mellon University). In 1949, he moved to New York City and began a successful career in magazine illustration and advertising. During the 1950s, he gained fame for his whimsical ink drawings of shoe advertisements. These were done in a loose, blotted ink style, and figured in some of his earliest showings in New York at the Bodley Gallery. With the concurrent rapid expansion of the record industry and the introduction of the vinyl record, Hi-Fi, and stereophonic recordings, RCA Records hired Warhol, along with another freelance artist, Sid Maurer, to design album covers and promotional materials.

The 1960s

It was during the 1960s that Warhol began to make paintings of famous American products such as "Campbell's Soup Cans" from the Campbell Soup Company and Coca-Cola, as well as paintings of celebrities like Marilyn Monroe, Troy Donahue, and Elizabeth Taylor. He founded "The Factory", his studio during these years and gathered around himself a wide range of artists, writers, musicians, and underground celebrities. He switched to silkscreen prints which he produced serially, seeking not only to make art of mass-produced items but to mass produce the art itself. By minimizing the role of his own hand in the production of his work and declaring that he wanted to be "a machine", Warhol sparked a revolution in art. His work quickly became very controversial and popular.

Warhol's work from this period revolves around American Pop (Popular) culture. He painted dollar bills, celebrities, brand name products and images from newspaper clippings - many of the latter were iconic images from headline stories of the decade (e.g. photographs of mushroom clouds, and police dogs attacking civil rights protesters). His subjects were instantly recognizable and often had a mass appeal. This aspect interested him most, and it unifies his paintings from this period. Take, for example Warhol's comments on the appeal of Coke:

What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coca Cola, Liz Taylor drinks Coca Cola, and just think, you can drink Coca Cola, too. A coke is a coke and no amount of money can get you a better coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the cokes are the same and all the cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it.

The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: (From A to B and Back Again), 1975, ISBN 0-15-671720-4

This quotation both expresses his affection for popular culture, and evidences an ambiguity of perspective that cuts across nearly all of the artist's statements about his own work.

New York's Museum of Modern Art hosted a Symposium on pop art in December 1962 during which artists like Warhol were attacked for "capitulating" to consumerism. Critics were scandalized by Warhol's open embrace of market culture. This symposium set the tone for Warhol's reception. Throughout the decade it became more and more clear that there had been a profound change in the culture of the art world, and that Warhol was at the center of that shift.

A pivotal event was the 1964 exhibit "The American Supermarket" a show held in Paul Bianchini's Upper East Side gallery. The show was presented as a typical small supermarket environment, except that everything in it from the produce, canned goods, meat, posters on the wall, etc. were created by six prominent pop artists of the time including the controversial (and like-minded) Billy Apple, Mary Inman, and Robert Watts. Warhol's painting of a can of Campbell's soup cost $1,500 while each autographed can sold for $6. The exhibit was one of the first mass events that directly confronted the general public with both Pop Art and the perennial question of what is art.

As an advertisement illustrator in the 1950s, Warhol used assistants to increase his productivity. Collaboration would remain a defining (and controversial) aspect of his working methods throughout his career; in the 1960s, however, this was particularly true. One of the most important collaborators during this period was Gerard Malanga. Malanga assisted the artist with producing silkscreens, films, sculpture, and other works at "The Factory", Warhol's aluminum foil-and-silver-paint-lined studio on 47th Street (later moved to Broadway). Other members of Warhol's Factory crowd included Freddie Herko, Ondine, Ronald Tavel, Mary Woronov, Pietro Psaier, Billy Name, and Brigid Berlin (from whom he apparently got the idea to tape record his phone conversations). During this decade, Warhol also groomed a retinue of bohemian eccentrics upon whom he bestowed the designation "Superstars", including Edie Sedgwick, Viva, and Ultra Violet. These people all participated in the Factory films, and some, like Berlin, remained friends with Warhol until his death. Important figures in the New York underground art/cinema world (e.g. writer John Giorno, film-maker Jack Smith) also appear in Warhol films of the 1960s, revealing Warhol's connections to a diverse range of artistic scenes during this period. By the end of the decade, Andy Warhol was himself a celebrity, appearing frequently in newspapers and magazines alongside Factory cohorts like Sedgwick.

Shooting

On June 3, 1968, Valerie Solanas shot Warhol and art critic and curator Mario Amaya at Warhol's studio.

Before the shooting, Solanas had been a marginal figure in the Factory scene. She founded a "group" called S.C.U.M. (Society for Cutting up Men) and authored the S.C.U.M. Manifesto, a separatist feminist attack on patriarchy.Solanas appears in the 1968 Warhol film, I, A Man. Earlier on the day of the attack, Solanas had been turned away from the Factory after asking for the return of a script she had given to Warhol. The script, apparently, had been misplaced.

Amaya received only minor injuries and was released from the hospital later the same day. Warhol however, was seriously wounded by the attack and barely survived (doctors opened his chest and massaged his heart to help stimulate its movement again). He suffered physical effects for the rest of his life. The shooting had a profound effect on Warhol's life and art.

Solanas was arrested the day after the assault. By way of explanation, she said that "He had too much control over my life." After the shooting, the Factory scene became much more tightly controlled, and for many this event brought the "Factory 60s" to an end.

The shooting was mostly overshadowed in the media due to the murder of Robert F. Kennedy two days later.

The 1970s

Compared to the success and scandal of Warhol's work in the 1960s, the 1970s would prove a much quieter decade. This period, however, saw Warhol becoming more entrepreneurial. According to Bob Colacello, Warhol devoted much of his time to rounding up new, rich patrons for portrait commissions — including Mick Jagger, Liza Minnelli, John Lennon, Diana Ross, Brigitte Bardot, and Michael Jackson. Warhol's famous portrait of Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong was created in 1973. He also founded, with Gerard Malanga, Interview magazine, and published The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975). In this book, he presents his ideas on the nature of art: "Making money is art, and working is art and good business is the best art."

Warhol used to socialize at Serendipity 3 and, later in the 70s, Studio 54, nightspots in New York City. He was generally regarded as quiet, shy, and as a meticulous observer. Art critic Robert Hughes called him "the white mole of Union Square".

The 1980s

Warhol had a re-emergence of critical and financial success in the 1980s, partially due to his affiliation and friendships with a number of prolific younger artists, who were dominating the "bull market" of '80s New York art: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Julian Schnabel, David Salle and the so-called Neo-Expressionists, as well as Francesco Clemente, Enzo Cucchi and members of the Transavantguardia movement, which had become influential.

By this period, Warhol's work had engendered controversy as to whether he had merely become a "business artist". In 1979 unfavorable reviews met his exhibits of portraits of 1970s personalities and celebrities, calling them superficial, facile and commercial, with no depth or indication of the significance of the subjects. This criticism was echoed for his 1980 exhibit of ten portraits at the Jewish Museum in New York, entitled "Jewish Geniuses", which Warhol, who exhibited no interest in Judaism or matters of interest to Jews, had described in his diary as "They're going to sell."

In hindsight, however, some critics have come to the realization that Warhol's superficiality and commerciality was in fact "the most brilliant mirror of our times", and that "Warhol had captured something irresistible about the zeitgeist of American culture in the 1970s."

Warhol also had an appreciation for intense Hollywood glamour. He once said: "I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They're so beautiful. Everything's plastic, but I love plastic. I want to be plastic."

Sexuality

Many people think of Warhol as "asexual" and merely a "voyeur", but these notions have been debunked by biographers (such as Victor Bockris), explored by other members of The Factory scene such as Bob Colacello (in his book Holy Terror: Andy Warhol Close Up), and by scholars like art historian Richard Meyer (in his book Outlaw Representation). The question of how his sexuality influenced Warhol's work and shaped his relationship to the art world is a major subject of scholarship on the artist, and is an issue that Warhol himself addressed in interviews, in conversation with his contemporaries, and in his publications (e.g. Popism: The Warhol Sixties).

Throughout his career, Warhol produced erotic photography and drawings of male nudes. Many of his most famous works (portraits of Liza Minnelli, Judy Garland, Elizabeth Taylor, and films like Blow Job, My Hustler, and Lonesome Cowboys) draw from gay underground culture and/or openly explore the complexity of sexuality and desire. Many of his films premiered in gay porn theaters. That said, some stories about Warhol's development as an artist revolved around the obstacle his sexuality initially presented as he tried to launch his career. The first works that he submitted to a gallery in the pursuit of a career as an artist were homoerotic drawings of male nudes. They were rejected for being too openly gay. In Popism, furthermore, the artist recalls a conversation with the film maker Emile de Antonio about the difficulty Warhol had being accepted socially by the then more famous (but closeted) gay artists Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. De Antonio explained that Warhol was "too swish and that upsets them." In response to this, Warhol writes, "There was nothing I could say to that. It was all too true. So I decided I just wasn't going to care, because those were all the things that I didn't want to change anyway, that I didn't think I 'should' want to change ... Other people could change their attitudes but not me". In exploring Warhol's biography, many turn to this period - the late 1950s and early 1960s - as a key moment in the development of his persona. Some have suggested that his frequent refusal to comment on his work, to speak about himself (confining himself in interviews to responses like "Uhm, No" and "Uhm, Yes", and often allowing others to speak for him), and even the evolution of his Pop style can be traced to the years when Warhol was first dismissed by the inner circles of the New York art world.

Religious beliefs

Warhol was a practicing Byzantine Rite Catholic. He regularly volunteered at homeless shelters in New York, particularly during the busier times of the year, and described himself as a religious person. Many of his later works contain almost-hidden religious themes or subjects, and a body of religious-themed works was found posthumously in his estate. Warhol also regularly attended Mass during his life, and the priest at Warhol's church, Saint Vincent's, said that the artist went there almost daily. His art is noticeably influenced by the eastern Christian iconographic tradition which was so evident in his places of worship.

Warhol's brother has described the artist as "really religious, but he didn't want people to know about that because [it was] private." Despite the private nature of his faith, in Warhol's eulogy John Richardson depicted it as devout: "To my certain knowledge, he was responsible for at least one conversion. He took considerable pride in financing his nephew's studies for the priesthood.

Death

Warhol died in New York City at 6:32 a.m. on February 22, 1987. According to news reports, he had been making good recovery from a routine gallbladder surgery at New York Hospital before dying in his sleep from a sudden heart attack. It was alleged that hospital staff had failed to adequately monitor his condition and overloaded him with fluids after his operation, causing him to suffer from a fatal case of water intoxication,[citation needed] which prompted Warhol's lawyers to sue the hospital for negligence. Prior to his diagnosis and operation, Warhol delayed having his recurring gallbladder problems checked, as he was afraid to enter hospitals and see doctors.

Warhol's body was taken back to Pittsburgh by his brothers for burial. The wake was at Thomas P. Kunsak Funeral Home and was an open-coffin ceremony. The coffin was a solid bronze casket with gold plated rails and white upholstery. Warhol wore a black cashmere suit, a paisley tie, a platinum wig, and sunglasses. He was holding a small prayer book and a red rose.

The funeral liturgy was held at the Holy Ghost Byzantine Catholic Church on Pittsburgh's North Side. The eulogy was given by Monsignor Peter Tay. Fellow artist Yoko Ono also made an appearance. The coffin was covered with white roses and asparagus ferns.

After the liturgy, the coffin was driven to St. John the Baptist Byzantine Catholic Cemetery in Bethel Park, a south suburb of Pittsburgh. At the grave, the priest said a brief prayer and sprinkled holy water on the casket. Before the coffin was lowered, Paige Powell dropped a copy of Interview magazine, an Interview t-shirt, and a bottle of the Estee Lauder perfume "Beautiful" into the grave. Warhol was buried next to his mother and father.

Weeks later a memorial service was held in Manhattan for Warhol on April 1, 1987 at St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York.

Warhol had so many possessions that it took Sotheby's nine days to auction his estate after his death; the auction grossed more than US$20 million. His total estate was worth considerably more, in no small part due to shrewd investments over the years.

Two years after Warhol's death, Songs for Drella, a co-commissioned work by The Brooklyn Academy of Music and The Arts at St. Ann's in New York City, was staged as a concept album performed by Lou Reed and John Cale, alumni of The Velvet Underground. The performance was filmed and directed by Ed Lachman, on December 6, 1989, and released on VHS and laserdisc formats. It was released on CD in a black velveteen package in 1990 by Sire Records. Drella was a nickname coined by Warhol superstar Ondine for Warhol, a portmanteau of Dracula and Cinderella, used by Warhol's crowd.

Songs for Drella offers a kind of vie romancée of Warhol, focusing on his interpersonal relations. The songs fall roughly into three categories: Warhol's (semi-fictitious) first-person perspective, third-person narratives chronicling events and affairs, and first-person feelings towards and commentaries on Warhol by Reed and Cale themselves. On Drella, Reed apologizes to a departed Warhol and comes to terms with his part in their personal conflict.

Reed and Cale had been playing the songs live in 1989 as a song cycle before committing them to tape. By the end of recording Cale vowed never to work with Reed again due to personal differences; nevertheless, Songs for Drella would prove to be the overture to a full-blown Velvet Underground reunion.

Although the album was conceived as an indivisible whole, a single was released off it, "Nobody But You".

On the twentieth anniversary of his death The Gershwin Hotel in New York City held a week-long series of events commemorating Warhol's art and his superstars. There was an award ceremony, a fashion show, and Blondie performed at the closing party. At the same time, The Carrozzini von Buhler Gallery in New York City held an exhibit titled, Andy Warhol: In His Wake. The exhibit featured the art of Warhol's superstars Ultra Violet, Billy Name, Taylor Mead, and Ivy Nicholson as well as art by a younger generation of artists who have been inspired by Warhol. One interactive sculpture in the exhibit, The Great Warhola, by Cynthia von Buhler, depicted Warhol as an arcade fortune-telling machine. The gallery was transformed to look like Warhol's silver factory. Factory Girl, a film about the life of Edie Sedgwick, starring Sienna Miller and Hayden Christensen, was also released one week before the anniversary of Warhol's death.

-Mc Donald-

Perbadanan McDonald's (BSNY: MCD) merupakan rangkaian restoran makanan segera yang terbesar di dunia.

Syarikat ini dimulakan pada tahun 1940 dengan sebuah restoran yang dibuka oleh adik-beradik Dick dan Mac McDonald, tetapi adalah pengenalan "Sistem Perkhidmatan Speedee" mereka pada tahun 1948 yang mengasaskan prinsip-prinsip restoran makanan segera ini. Bagaimanapun, McDonald's pada masa ini mengisytiharkan tarikh "penubuhannya" sebagai tarikh pembukaan restoran francais pertama oleh Ketua Pegawai Eksekutif Ray Kroc pada tahun 1955. Sebenarnya, restoran Ray Kroc ini merupakan restoran yang kesembilan bagi McDonald's.

GARIS MASA SEJARAH MC DONALD

• 1937: Adik-beradik Dick dan Mac McDonald membukan gerai hot dog yang dinamakan "Airdome" di Arcadia, California.
• 1940: Dick dan Mac memindahkan Airdome ke San Bernardino, California, di mana mereka membuka sebuah restoran McDonald's di Route 66 pada 15 Mei. Sebagaimana yang biasa pada masa itu, mereka menggajikan lebih kurang 20 pelayan. Menu mereka mengandungi 25 jenis makanan, kebanyakannya daging barbeku. Hamburger McDonald's yang pertama berharga AS$0.15. Restoran itu menjadi suatu tempat yang amat popular dengan remaja-remaja, serta amat menguntungkan.
• 1948: Selepas mendapati bahawa hampir kesemua keuntungan mereka datangnya daripada hamburger, kedua-dua adik-beradik menutup restoran mereka selama beberapa bulan untuk mencipta dan melaksanakan "Sistem Perkhidmatan Speedee", sebuah sistem rangkaian pemasangan yang lalu arus untuk hamburger. Pelayan-pelayannya dipecat dan sewaktu restoran itu dibuka semula, ia hanya menjual hamburger, susu kocak dan kentang jejari. Dijual pada harga AS$0.15, harga burgernya hanya merupakan setengah daripada harga di tempat lain yang umum, dan ia dilayan dengan segera. Restoran itu amat berjaya, dan kemasyhurannya disebar dari mulut ke mulut.
• 1953: Adik-beradi McDonald memulakan francaisnya, dengan Neil Fox merupakan pembeli francaisnya yang sulung. Yang kedua dibuka di Phoenix, Arizona. Ia merupakan restoran pertama untuk menonjolkan reka bentuk Lengkung Emas; kemudiannya pada tahun yang sama, restoran yang asal dibina semula mengikut gaya ini.
• 1953: Restoran McDonald's yang keempat dibuka di Downey, California pada sudut Lakewood dan Florence Avenue, yang kini merupakan restoran McDonald's yang tertua di dunia yang masih beroperasi.
• 1954: Usahawan dan jurujual pengadun susu kocak, Ray Kroc terpesona oleh restoran McDonald's semasa membuat lawatan, apabila beliau mendapati keupayaannya yang luar biasa serta kepopularannya. (Orang-orang lain yang pernah melawat restoran itu dan diilhami olehnya ialah James McLamore, pengasas Burger King, dan Glen Bell, pengasas Taco Bell.) Selepas melihat operasi restoran itu, Kroc bertemu dengan adik-beradik McDonald, dengan cadangan supaya membenarkannya menjual francais restoran McDonald diluar pangkalan syarikat (iaitu California dan Arizona), dengan sendiri sebagai pembeli francais yang pertama. Kroc bekerja bersungguh-sungguh untuk menjual McDonald's dan juga cuba memujuk Walt Disney yang merupakan kenalannya pada masa perang, supaya mengizinkannya membuka sebuah saluran keluar di Disneyland yang akan dibuka tidak lama kemudian. Malangnya, percubaan itu tidak jadi.
• 1955: Ray Kroc menubuhkan "McDonald's Systems, Inc." pada 2 Mac, sebagai struktur undang-undang untuk pembeli francaisnya. Beliau membuka restoran McDonald's yang kesembilan di Des Plaines, Illinois, Chicago pada 15 April. Jumlah jualannya pada hari pertama ialah AS$366.12. Kini, risalah syarikat biasanya merujuk kepada tarikh itu sebagai "permulaan" syarikat, walaupun McDonald's pada waktu itu sudah beroperasi selama 15 tahun. Perubahan ini bertindak untuk menghapuskan nama adik-beradik daripada sejarah McDonald's untuk mengutamakan "Pengasas" Kroc. Syarikat masih merujuk kepada restoran ini sebagai "McDonald's #1".
• 1955: Ray Kroc menggajikan Harry J. Sonneborn sebagai Ketua Pegawai Kewangan untuk McDonald's. Harry Sonneborn menjadi pengaruh yang utama di perbadanan McDonald's sehingga beliau meletakkan jawatan pada tahun 1967.
• 1960: Syarikat Kroc diberikan nama yang baru, iaitu "Perbadanan McDonald's".
• 1961: Adik-beradik McDonald bersetuju menjual hak-hak perniagaan mereka kepada Kroc dengan harga AS$2.7 juta. Kroc meminjam daripada beberapa pelabur (termasuknya Universiti Princeton); Kroc berasa harga yang ditetapkan adalah terlalu tinggi dan wujudnya ketegangan hubungan antaranya dengan adik-beradik itu. Perjanjian itu membenarkan adik-beradik meneruskan operasi restoran asal mereka, tetapi sebagai kealpaan, mereka gagal mengekalkan hak untuk merupakan salah satu daripada francais McDonald's. Dinamakan semula dengan nama "M Besar" ("The Big M"), Kroc menyebabkan perniagaan itu tertutup dengan membuka sebuah saluran keluar McDonald hanya satu blok daripada restoran adik-beradik itu di utara; beliau menghadiri pembukaan itu. Jika adik-beradik itu mengekalkan perjanjian yang asal, dan diberikan 0.5% daripada hasil tahunan rangkaian itu, mereka atau warisnya akan menerima melebihi AS$100 juta setahun pada hari ini.
• 1963: Salah satu daripada wawasan pemasaran Kroc ialah keputusannya untuk menujukan pemasaran hamburger McDonald kepada keluarga dan kanak-kanak. Pembeli francais Washington, D.C., John Gibson dan Oscar Goldstein (Perbadanan Penyebaran Gee Gee) menajakan pertunjukan kanak-kanak di WRC-TV yang digelarkan Pelawak Bozo, satu watak francais. Peranan watak itu dilakon oleh Willard Scott di Washington, D.C. dari 1959 sehingga 1962. Selepas pertunjukan itu dibatalkan, Goldstein menggajikan Scott untuk melakonkan maskot baru McDonald's, "Ronald McDonald", dalam tiga iklan TV yang pertama. Watak itu kemudiannya menyebar ke lain-lain tempat di Amerika Syarikat melalui kempen pengiklanan, walaupun Scott serta versi kostumnya yang asal ditukar. Beberapa tahun kemudian, barisan watak McDonaldland diperkembangkan.
• 1963: Filet-O-Fish diperkenalkan di sebuah restoran di Cincinnati, Ohio yang terletaknya di kawasan yang didominasikan oleh Roman Katolik yang tidak makan daging pada hari Jumaat. Hidangan ikan itu merupakan tambahan yang pertama kepada menu asal, dan dijual di seluruh Amerika Syarikat pada tahun yang berikutnya, dengan ikan dibekalkan oleh Gorton's dari Gloucester.
• 1967: Restoran McDonald's dibuka buat pertama kali di luar Amerika Syarikat di Richmond, British Columbia.
• 1967: Reka bentuk restoran berasingan kini, dengan bumbung mansard dan tempat duduk dalam, diperkenalkan.
• 1968: Mac Besar, yang serupa dengan hamburger Big Boy, dan hamburger, Pai Epal Panas ("Hot Apple Pie") diperkenalkan.
• 1970: Selepas hak milik bertukar tangan pada 1968, restoran "M Besar" yang asal ditutup. Bangunan itu dirobohkan dua tahun kemudian, dengan hanya sebahagian tanda papannya tertinggal; ini telah pun dipulihkan.
• 1971: Restoran McDonald's dibuka buat pertama kali di Asia pada Julai di Jepun, iaitu di daerah Ginza, Toky.
• 1971: Restoran McDonald's dibuka buat pertama kali di Eropah pada 21 Ogos di Belanda, iaitu di Zaandam (berhampiran Amsterdam). Pembeli francais ialah Ahold.
• 1971: Restoran McDonald's dibuka buat pertama kali di Jerman, iaitu di Munich pada Disember. Ia merupakan saluran keluar McDonald's yang pertama untuk menjual minuman alkohol, iaitu bir. Negara-negara Eropah yang lain berikut pada awal 1970-an.
• 1971: Restoran McDonald's dibuka buat pertama kali di Australia, iaitu di subbandar Yagoona, Sydney pada bulan Disember.
• 1973: "Paun Sesuku" ("Quarter Pounder") diperkenalkan.
• 1974: Restoran McDonald's dibuka buat pertama kali di United Kingdom, iaitu di Woolwich, London tenggara, pada 12 Oktober. Ia merupakan restoran syarikat yang ke-3000.
• 1975: Konsep "Pandu Lalu" ("The Drive-Thru") diperkenalkan pada bulan Januari di Sierra Vista, Arizona. Ia kemudian digelarkan "McPandu" ("McDrive") di sesebahagian negara.
• 1977: Restoran McDonald's dibuka buat pertama kali di Ireland.
• 1979: "Hidangan Bahagia" ("Happy Meal") diperkenalkan di Amerika Syarikat.
• 1979: Restoran McDonald's dibuka buat pertama kali di Perancis, iaitu di Strasbourg.
• 1980: McDonald's memperkenalkan sandwic "McAyam" ("McChicken") yang merupakan makan ayam pertama. Ia tergagal dan dikeluarkan daripada menu, tetapi diperkenalkan semula selepas "Ayam McNugget" ("Chicken McNuggets") berjaya.
• 1983: McDonald's memperkenalkan "Ayam McNugget" yang merupakan campuran daging putih dengan yang bukan putih dalam bentuk ketulan yang kecil; dengan pantasnya, ia menjadi makanan laris.
• 1984: Pada 18 Julai, James Oliver Huberty merompak sebuah restoran McDonald's, dan membunuh 21 orang di San Ysidro, San Diego, California, dalam satu peristiwa yang kini digelarkan pembunuhan beramai-ramai McDonald's.
• 1984: Syarikat menjadi penaja utama untuk [Olimpik Musim Panas 1984]]. Restoran-restorannya di Amerika Syarikat mengalami kerugian dalam permainan "Apabila Amerika Syarikat Menang, Kamu Memang" ("When America Wins, You Win") selepas negara-negara blok Soviet memulakan Sukan itu dan menyebabkan Amerika Syarikat memenangi banyak pingkat.
• 1985: McDonald's membuka saluran keluar buat pertama kali di Itali, iaitu Bolzano-Bozen.
• 1986: McDonald's membuka saluran keluar yang kedua di Itali, dan yang pertama di Rom. Untuk mengharmonikan dengan persekitaran yang bersejarah berhampiran Spanish Steps, muka bangunan itu berwarna lembut dan hiasan dalamannya mencipta piawai yang baru untuk syarikat.
• 1988: McDonald's membuka restoran buat pertama kali di negara komunis, iaitu di Győr, Hungary. Sebuah restoran di Belgrade, Yugoslavia dibuka pada tahun yang berikutnya.
• 1990: McDonald's membuka saluran keluar yang pertama di Moscow pada 31 Januari. Pada suatu masa, ia merupakan McDonald's yang terbesar di dunia (ia masih merupakan saluran yang terbesar di Eropah). Disebabkan alasan politik, McDonald's Kanada bertanggungjawab kepada pembukaan saluran keluar ini tanpa banyak bantuan daripada syarikat induk di Amerika Syarikat; sebuah dinding memaparkan bendera Kanada and Soviet. Untuk mengatasi masalah bekalan, syarikat itu memulakan rangkaian bekalan tersendiri, termasuknya penternakan, di dalam Kesatuan Soviet. Berbeza dengan pelaburan asing yang lain, restoran ini menerima rouble dan bukannya dolar Amerika Syarikat. Ia amat popular, dengan pelanggan-pelanggan berbaris berjam-jam pada awal-awalnya.
• 1992: McDonald's yang pertama membuka di Afrika, iaitu Casablanca, Morocco.
• 1992: Stella Liebeck mengalami luka terbakar darjah ketiga sewaktu membeli kopi di sebuah McDonal pandu lalu. Dia mendakwa syarikat dalam kes yang kini digelarkan "kes kopi McDonald's".
• 1992: Pekerja-pekerja McDonald's, iaitu Freeman MacNeil, Darren Muise, dan Derek Wood dari Sungai Sydney, Nova Scotia, memecah masuk ke dalam restoran selepas waktu tutup untuk merompak tempat itu. Mereka menembak, menikam, dan memukul tiga orang pekerja sehingga mati dan meninggalkan seorang cacat secara kekal.
• 1992: Restoran McDonald's yang terbesar di dalam dunia dibuka pada 23 April di Beijing, China (melebihi 700 tempat duduk). Bersama-sama dengan bangunan lain yang bersebelahan, ia kemudian diroboh.
• 1993: Pada tengah hari 10 Ogos, Dion Terres masuk ke restoran McDonald's di Kenosha, Wisconsin dan menembak tiga kali secara rawak dari revolver .44nya. Dua orang mati dan seorang lagi cedera sebelum dia membunuh diri.
• 1994: McDonald's memulakan pemasaran ujian untuk hamburger CheeseHouse dengan sos McDJ yang istimewa di bahagian-bahagian Cleveland yang terpilih. Produk itu gagal.
• kira-kira 1995: McDonald's menerima sungutan daripada pembeli francais bahawa terlalu banyak francais telah dibenarkan, dan menyebabkan pesaingan yang hebat antara mereka. McDonald's memulakan kajian kesan pasaran sebelum membenarkan francais yang baru.
• 1996: Selepas aparteid berakhir, McDonald's yang pertama dibuka di Afrika Selatan.
• 1996: McDonald's yang pertama dibuka di Belaru, dan merupakan negara yang ke-100 untuk rangkaiannya. Sewaktu upacara pembukaan, tentera awam Belarusia dituduh atas kekejaman kepada orang awam yang hendak masuk ke restoran di Minsk.
• 1996: McDonald's yang pertama di India dibuka.
• 1997: McDonald's memenangi kes "McLibel" yang telah dianggap sebagai kemenangan yang membawa kerugian kepada imej syarikat. Hanya lebih kurang separuh daripada keputusan mahkamah terhadap tuduhan-tuduhan memihak kepada McDonald's, walaupun banyak sumber undang-undang telah digunakan untuk mendakwa defendan-defendan yang mewakili diri.
• 1998: McDonald's yang pertama dibuka di Lahore, Pakistan. Seminggu kemudian, sebuah saluran keluar dibuka di Karachi.
• 1999: Penindak cergas Perancis yang berhaluan kiri, José Bové dan subahatnya menarik perhatian sejagat sewaktu memusnahkan bangunan francais McDonald di Millau (Aveyron) yang cuma separuh siap dibina. Peristiwa itu terjadi selepas Kesatuan Eropah mengharamkan import daging Amerika Syarikat keran menggunakan rawatan hormon; untuk membalas dendam, Amerika Syarikat menaikkan duti import untuk keji Roquefort Perancis dan produk-product Kesatuan Eropah yang lain. Bové dihukum penjara tiga bulan untuk peranannya dalam peristiwa ini.
• 2000: Eric Schlosser menerbitkan "Negara Makanan Segera" ("Fast Food Nation"), sebuah buku yang kritis kepada makanan segera secara amnya, dan khususnya, McDonald's.
• 2000: Syarikat membuka saluran keluar British yang ke-1000 di dalam Kubah Milenium ("Millennium Dome").
• 2001: Biro Penyiasatan Persekutuan (FBI) melaporkan bahawa pekerja-pekerja Simon Worldwide, sebuah syarikat yang ditugaskan oleh McDonald's untuk memberikan perkhidmatan promosi untuk "Hidangan Bahagia" ("Happy Meal") dan pertandingan 'Millionaire'/'Monopoly', membuat pencurian yang bernilai melebihi AS$20 juta.
• 2002: Kajian oleh majalah "Restoran dan Institusi" ("Restaurants and Institutions") menempatkan McDonald's sebagai restoran yang ke-15 dari segi mutu makanan di kalangan rangkaian hamburger, dan menekankan kegagalan syarikat untuk menguatkuasakan piawainya dalam rangkaian francais.
• *2002: McDonald's mencatatkan kerugian suku tahun buat pertama kali (AS$344) pada suku tahun terakhir. Ia bergerak balas kepada pesaingan yang hebat daripada restoran-restoran makanan segera yang lain, dengan mencuba beralih ke segmen pasaran yang lebih tinggi, melalui burger yang lebih bermutu, dan jenis yang lebih banyak, serta memasang pulih restoran-restorannya. Ia mengumumkan bahawa ia akan menarik diri daripada tiga buah negara (termasuknya Bolivia) dan menutup 175 buah restoran yang rugi.
• 2003: McDonald's memulakan kempen pemasaran sejagat yang menonjolkan imej yang lebih sihat dan lebih bermutu. Kempen itu yang diberikan gelaran "Aku tengah menyukainya" ("i'm lovin' it™") dimulakan dengan serentak di lebih daripada 100 negara di seluruh dunia.
• 2003: Menurut Technomic, sebuah firma penyelidikan pasaran, bahagian pasaran McDonald's di Amerika Syarikat telah jatuh tiga titik peratusan dalam lima tahun dan kini merupakan 15.2 peratus.
• 2003: McDonald's melaporkan kerugian sebanyak AS$126 juta untuk suku tahun yang keempat.
• 2004: Morgan Spurlock mengarah dan berlakon dalam filem dokumentari "Saiz Super Ku" ("Super Size Me") di mana protagonis tidak memakan apa-apa kecuali makanan McDonald's selama 30 hari dan mengalami kemerosotan kesihatannya.
• 2005: McDonald's menguji kaji dengan pusat panggilan untuk pesanan pandu lalu. Pusat itu yang ditempatkan di Fargo, North Dakota mengambil pesanan dari lebih daripada sedozen saluran keluar di Oregon dan di Washington. Uji kaji ini disebabkan sebahagiannya oleh kos buruh, kerana gaji minimum di Dakota Utara adalah jauh lebih rendah (melebihi 40%) daripada gajinya di Oregon ataupun Washington.
• 2005: Disebabkan oleh tekanan pesaingan, McDonald's Australia memulakan polisi "Dibuat untuk kamu" ("Made for you") di mana makanannya dimasak selepas pelanggan membuat pesanan, berbanding tatacara bertentangan yang diamalkan sejak 1948). Ia akan menjadi amalan yang piawai di semua restoran di Australia pada tahun 2007. Sesebahagian restoran di New Zealand telah mengikutnya. Amalan itu pernah diuji di Amerika Syarikat lebih awal lagi tetapi tidak berjaya.
• 2005: McDonald's membuka perkhidmatan Wi-Fi di restoran-restoran yang terpilih, dengan Nintendo untuk Nintendo DS.
• 2006: McDonald's mengumumkan bahawa ia akan membekalkan maklumat pemakanan dalam bungkusannya untuk semua produk, bermula pada bulan Mac dan perubahan menu-nya akan menekankan ayam, salad, dan "makanan segar" yang lain, berbanding hamburger.

-Coca-Cola-

Coca-Cola ialah minuman kola berkarbonat yang dikeluarkan oleh Syarikat Coca-Cola (The Coca-Cola Company; NYSE:KO) dari Atlanta, Georgia, Amerika Syarikat. Minuman ini merupakan salah satu daripada jenama komersil yang terkenal di dunia dengan jualan sejagat yang amat meluas. Setelah menerima nama samaran Coke yang digunakan secara meluas, Syarikat Coca-Cola kemudian telah mendaftar nama ini sebagai cap dagangannya.

Dicipta sebagai ubat paten pada hujung abad ke-19, Coca-Cola telah diperoleh oleh usahawan Asa Griggs Candler, dan melalui taktik pemasarannya yang amat bijaksana, Coke berjaya mendominasi pasaran minuman bergas di seluruh dunia pada abad ke-20. Walaupun sekali sekala dikritik kerana kesannya kepada kesihatan dan dituduh kerana perlakuan kesalahan oleh syarikat itu, Coca-Cola masih merupakan minuman bergas yang amat popular di seluruh dunia.

RUMUSAN COCA-COLA

Sebagai satu strategi pemasaran awam yang dimulakan oleh Robert W. Woodruff, syarikat ini telah menghebahkan bahawa rumusan minuman Coca-Cola merupakan suatu rahsia perdagangan dalam perniagaan moden yang diketahui oleh beberapa orang pekerja sahaja. Rahsia ini termasuklah, ramuan yang dikenali "7X" yang selama ini dianggap sebagai komponen kamiran untuk Coca Cola. Walaupun begitu, sehingga kini tiada sesiapa yang mengetahui "X" itu merujuk kepada apa — walaupun adalah dipercayai pekerja Coca Cola mencampuradukkan minuman ini menurut nombor yang diberi kepada ramuan tertentu dan bukannya nama, untuk mengelakkan kemungkinan pekerja melakukan kejuruteraan terbalik keatas resipi Coca-Cola. Namun demikian, pembuat minyak wangi dan ahi sains pemakanan — melalui kaedah analisis yang moden — mampu mengenalpasti komposisi produknya, satu fakta yang disokong oleh kewujudannya banyak perisa minuman kola dan minuman bergas, seperti Pepsi.

Namun, terdapat khabar angin yang menyatakan resipi asal Coca Cola mengandungi kekacang mongolia, dan pada pertengahan 80-an apabila rahsia ini dibongkar oleh kerajaan Mongolia, mereka telah menaikkan harga komoditi ini.(Coca Cola telah membeli kekacang mongolia secara senyap melalui beberapa pengedar). Akibatnya, Coca Cola terpaksa menggantikannya dengan kekacang mongolia tiruan. Selepas itu, sama ada disebabkan usaha mereka untuk membuat keuntungan apabila ramuan rahsia mereka menjadi semakin mahal, atau perisa tiruan mereka tidak menjadi (dan syarikat ini memerlukan lebih masa agar orang ramai melupakan rasa Coca-Cola yang sebenar), 'Coke' yang baru telah diperkenalkan.

MODEL PENGELUARAN FRANCAIS

Pengeluaran dan pengedaran Coca-Cola adalah mengikut model francais. Syarikat Coca-Cola hanya menghasilkan sari sirap yang dijual kepada pelbagai pembotol yang memegang francaisnya di seluruh dunia. Para pembotol ini menghasilkan minuman siap dengan mencampurkan sari sirap dengan air turas dan gula (ataupun pemanis buatan). Selepas mengisikan minuman dalam tin dan botol, mereka akan menjual dan mengedarkannya kepada kedai runcit, restoran, mesin layan diri, dan pengedar perkhidmatan makanan. Biasanya, pembotol-pembotol juga dikehendaki bertanggungjawab untuk kesemua pengiklanan dan promosi jualan di dalam kawasan mereka.

Syarikat Coca-Cola merupakan pemilik saham minoriti bagi beberapa pembeli francais yang terbesar, seperti Coca-Cola Enterprises dan Coca-Cola FEMSA, tetapi hampir setengah daripada jumlah jualan sejagat adalah dihasilkan oleh pembotol-pembotol yang sepenuh bebas.

Oleh sebab gula dan pemanis ditambahkan oleh pembotol, kemanisan minuman Coca-Cola telah dikatakan berbeza-beza dari satu kawasan ke satu kawasan supaya dapat menyesuaikan rasa minuman kepada rasa orang tempatan.

REKABENTUK COCA-COLA

Versi pertama botol yang termasyhur ini dikeluarkan pada tahun 1916.

Sebahagian besar Logotip Coco-Cola yang termasyhur telah dikatakan dicipta oleh Frank Mason Robinson, rakan kongsi John Pemberton, pada tahun 1885. Adalah Robinson yang memberikan nama kepada minuman ini, dan beliau juga memilih askara kursif yang tersendiri untuk logo itu. Muka taip yang digunakan merupakan askara Spencer telah diperkembangkan pada pertengahan abad ke-19 dan digunakan untuk tulisan tangan yang rasmi di Amerika Syarikat pada waktu itu.

Botol Coca-Cola yang serupa termasyhur, dan digelarkan "botol kontur" dalam syarikat, telah dicipta oleh Alexander Samuelsson, bekas peniup kaca Sweden, yang berhijrah ke Amerika Syarikat pada 1880-an. Beliau digajikan sebagai pengurus Syarikat Root Glass di Terre Haute, Indiana yang merupakan salah satu daripada pembekal botol Coca-Cola. Menurut legenda, selepas menerima pesanan untuk botol yang benar-benar tersendiri daripada pembotol Benjamin F. Thomas, Samuelsson memutuskan untuk menentukan adakah bentuk kedua-dua bahan di belakang nama produk (iaitu, koka dan kekeras kola) dapat bertindak sebagai ilham. Beliau mencari dalam Ensiklopedia Britannica dan dengan cepatnya terpaksa menyingkirkan gagasan itu. Bagaimanapun, beliau masih menyelak-nyelak halaman sewaktu ternampak sebuah gambar lenggai koko, dengan bentuk kembung serta alur tersendiri.

Pada November 1915, Syarikat Root Glass mempatenkan reka bentuk botol itu, dan memulakan pengeluaran pada tahun 1916. Telah dikatakan bahawa pemilik Syarikat Root Glass menjadi salah seorang yang terkaya di Indiana oleh sebab botol ini, sedangkan Samuelsson tidak mendapat apa-apa selain daripada gaji biasanya.

PENGIKLANAN COCA-COLA

Label yang direka bentuk khas untuk musim Krismas. Bentuk botol ini direka bentuk supaya dapat dikecam sejagat, walaupun terpecah, dan telah ditanda dagangkan.

Pengiklanan Coca-Cola membawa kesan yang utama terhadap kebudayaan Amerika, dan sering diberi penghargaan kerana merekacipta imej moden Santa Claus sebagai orang tua yang berpakaian merah dan putih; bagaimanapun, imej itu memang telah pun menjadi biasa sebelum Coca-Cola memulakan promosi imej itu pada tahun-tahun 1930-an dalam kempen-kempen pengiklanan musim sejuknya. Pada 1970-an, sebuah lagu daripada iklan Coca-Cola berjudul "Aku Ingin Mengajari Dunia Bernyanyi" ("I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing"), yang digubah oleh Roquel Billy Davis, menjadi lagu single yang disuka ramai, tetapi tiada buktinya bahawa jumlah jualan minumannya bertambah.

Pengiklanan Coke merebak kerana salah satu daripada matlamat Woodruff adalah untuk memastikan bahawa setiap orang di Bumi minum Coca-Cola sebagai minuman pilihannya. Pengiklanan Coke hampir sentiasa ada, khususnya di kawasan-kawasan selatan Amerika Utara, seperti Atlanta yang merupakan tempat asal Coke.

Cogan kata pengiklanan Coca Cola telah banyak kali ditukar dalam sejarah panjangnya, termasuk "Berhenti sejenak yang menyegarkan" ("The pause that refreshes"), "Aku ingin membelikan dunia sebotol Coke" ("I'd like to buy the world a Coke"), dan "Coke ialah itu" ("Coke is it") (sila lihat Cogan kata Coca-Cola).

KRITIKAN

(Legenda bandar dan kegunaan luar biasa)

Legenda bandar mengenai Coca-Cola yang terlalu banyak telah menyebabkan "Halaman Rujukan Legenda Bandar" ("Urban Legends Reference Pages") untuk mengekhaskan satu bahagian yang berasingan dalam laman webnya untuk "Legenda Coke". Satu dakwaan yang palsu mengatakan bahawa pada suatu masa, Coke berwarna hijau, ataupun dikarbonatkan secara tidak sengaja sewaktu seorang kerani memancutkan sirap ke dalam gelas yang salah.

Coca-Cola telah menjadi sasaran legenda bandar yang mencela bahawa minuman itu mengandungi terlalu banyak asid (nilai pHnya sebanyak 2.5 merupakan pertengahan antara cuka dengan asid gaster), ataupun air berkarbonatnya membawa kesan yang terancam.
Legenda bandar biasanya merupakan "fakta melawak", umpamanya:

• "Peronda lebuh raya menggunakan Coke untuk membersihkan darah daripada lebuh raya selepas kemalangan."
• "Terdapatnya orang yang pernah mati sewaktu menyertai pertandingan minum Coke."
• "Coke boleh melarutkan gigi jika dibiarkannya semalaman."

Kesemua dakwaan ini adalah palsu. (Sedangkan peronda lebuh raya tidak menggunakan Coca-Cola untuk tujuan ini, telah dibuktikan dalam rancangan televisyen "MythBusters" bahawa Coca-Cola merupakan agen pencuci pencuci yang baik.)

• Untuk maklumat lanjut mengenai keasidan dan rasa bimbang terhadap kesihatan, sila lihat sub bahagian keasidan di bawah.

Satu kegunaan Coke yang luar biasa adalah sebagai bahan kawalan karat — asid fosforik di dalam Coke dapat menukarkan oksida besi menjadi ferum fosfat. Oleh sebab itu, ia boleh dipergunakan untuk rawatan antikakisan peringkat permulaan bagi barang-barang besi dan keluli. Menurut berbagai-bagai laman web, asid dalam Coca-Cola juga boleh dipergunakan untuk menyadur anod titanium.

Bertentangan dengan kepercayaan popular, kokaina, iaitu ekstrak daun koka, tidak pernah ditambahkan ke dalam Coca-Cola secara langsung. Oleh sebab kokaina memang wujud dalam daun koka, terdapatnya sedikit kokaina juga di dalam minuman. Pada hari ini, Coca Cola menggunakan daun koka "terpakai" yang telah menjalani proses ekstrak kokaina untuk memberi rasa pada minumannya. Oleh sebab proses ini tidak dapat mengekstrak alkaloids kokaina pada peringkat molekul, minuman itu masih mengandungi kesan perangsang.

Kesan jangka panjang kepada kesihatan

Sedangkan ramai pakar pemakanan percaya bahawa "minuman bergas dan makanan yang kaya dengan kalori tetapi tidak bernutrien boleh padan dengan diet yang baik", telah dianggapi secara am bahawa Coca-Cola dan minuman bergas yang lain adalah berbahaya jika terlalu meminumnya, khususnya terhadap kanak-kanak yang minumnya sebagai ganti dan bukannya sebagai pelengkap untuk diet seimbang. Kajian telah mendedahkan bahawa peminum minuman bergas mempunyai pengambilan yang lebih rendah untuk kalsium (boleh mengakibatkan osteoporosis), magnesium, asid askorbik, riboflavin, dan vitamin A.

Coca-Cola juga membangkitkan kritikan untuk penggunaan kafeinanya. Industri minuman bergas telah menganggap kebanyakan daripada kritikan ini sebagai mitos bandar. Terdapat beberapa laporan yang mengatakan bahawa Coco-Cola boleh menagihkan, walaupun kebenaran cakap ini masih belum dipastikan.

Keasidan

Sejak 1920-an, banyak bukti telah dikemukakan untuk memastikan bahawa Coca-Cola tidaklah lebih berbahaya berbanding minuman bergas yang serupa, ataupun jus buah-buahan berasid seperti jus epal Mr Juicy. Dalam keadaan yang biasa, keasidannya tdiak mengakibatkan bahaya yang langsung.

Uji kajian 2005 oleh Akademi Pergigian Pediatri Amerika mendapati bahawa pH mulut selepas berkumur dengan Coca-Cola adalah 5.5, 5.6, and 5.7 in 5, 10, dalam jangka masa 20 minit (masing-masing). Tiada satu pHnya yang termasuk dalam julat genting untuk merosakkan enamel gigi. Diet Coke didapati mempunyai asid yang kurang sedikit.

Kesaksamaan uji kajian ini boleh dipersoalkan. Pada tahun 2003, xxx mendapat bantuan sebanyak AS$1 juta daripada Coca-Cola untuk membiayai penyelidikan pendidikannya.
Coca-Cola juga telah membangkitkan kritikan kerana penggunaan asid fosforiknya.

• Untuk maklumat lanjut, sila lihat Asid fosforik di dalam makanan.

Sirap glukosa berfruktosa tinggi

Sejak akhir dekad- 1980-an di Amerika Syarikat, Coke telah dibuat daripada sirap glukosa berfruktosa tinggi sebagai untuk gula glukosa/fruktosa, kecuali Coke Kosyer untuk Passover ("Kosher for Passover") yang tidak boleh dibuat daripadanya. Penggantian ini telah disebabkan oleh harga gula yang semakin tinggi pada waktu ini. Terdapatnya beberapa kumpulan orang yang mengkritik langkah ini kerana jagung untuk sirap jagungnya mungkin datangnya daripada tumbuhan gen terganti.

-Kertas-

APA ITU KERTAS?

Kertas adalah bahan nipis, rata yang dihasilkan oleh penekanan gentian. Biasanya gentian yang digunakan merupakan gentian semulajadi dan berasaskan selulosa. Bahan paling biasa digunakan adalah pulpa kayu daripada pokok kayu pulpa (kebanyakannya kayu lembut) seperti spruce, tetapi bahan gentian sayuran lain termasuk kapas, linen, dan hem boleh digunakan.

Timbunan 500 keping kertas dipanggil rim (ream). Tepi helaian kertas mampu bertindak sebagai gergaji halus dan nipis hingga menyebabkan luka.

PENGHASILAN KERTAS

Penghasilan kertas boleh dihasilkan dengan tangan atau mesin. Terdapat tiga langkah yang terbabit dalam penghasilan kertas iaitu:
(a) penyediaan gentian
(b) dibentuk menjadi kepingan
(c) pengeringan

(a) Penyediaan gentian

Bahan yang digunakan bagi menghasilkan kertas dihancurkan menjadi pulpa, campuran gentian pekat terampai dalam cecair. Oleh kerana kebanyakan gentian ini dihasilkan dari sumber semulajadi, proses ini membabitkan langkah pembasuhan dan pengasingan. Apabila gentian telah dihasilkan, ia akan diluntur atau diwarnakan bagi menukar gambaran barangan akhir.

(b) Dibentuk menjadi kepingan

Campuran pulpa kemudiannya dicairkan dengan air menjadikan ampaian cair. Ampaian cair ini ditapis melalui tapisan bergerak nipis untuk membentuk jaringan bergentian. Tera air boleh ditekan kepada kertas pada tahap ini. Jaringan bergerak ini ditekan dan dikeringkan menjadi golongan kertas panjang.

Dalam proses menggunakan acuan, sejumlah pulpa diletakkan dalam bentuk, dengan asas berjaring (atau sebarang peranti penapis lain), dengan itu gentian tertinggal selapis atas jaring dan air berlebihan akan dikeringkan. Pada masa ini, tekanan boleh digunakan bagi menghilangkan air melalui tindakan tekanan. Kertas kemudian boleh dikeluarkan daripada acuan semasa basah atau kering untuk diproses lebih lanjut.

Kebanyakan kertas dihasilkan dengan menggunakan proses berterusan (Fourdrinier) untuk membentuk gelungan atau jaringan. Apabila dikeringkan, jaringan berterusan ini boleh dipotong menjadi kepingan bersegi dengan memotongnya pada saiz yang diingini. Saiz kertas piawaian ditetapkan oleh badan penyelaras seperti Organisasi Piawaian Sejagat (International Organization for Standardization) (ISO).

(c) Pengeringan

Kertas mungkin akan dikeringkan beberapa kali semasa pengilangan (kertas kering lebih kukuh berbanding kertas basah, dengan itu ianya lebih baik untuk mengekalkan kertas kering untuk menghalang ianya putus dan menghentikan baris pengeluaran). Kadangkala kertas masih putus di mana ia akan ditukar menjadi pulpa dan diproses semula.

SEJARAH

Kertas dalam perkataan Inggeris - paper diambil daripada bahan penulisan Mesir silam yang dikenali sebagai papirus, yang dijalin daripada pokok papirus. Papirus dihasilkan seawal 3000 SM di Mesir, dan kemudiannya di Greece dan Rome silam. Lebih ke utara, parchment atau velum, yang diperbuat daripada kulit biri-biri atau kulit anak kambing, menggantikan papirus yang memerlukan keadaan cuaca sub-tropika untuk tumbuh. Di China, dokumen biasa ditulis di atas kepingan buluh, menjadikan ianya sebagai sangat berat untuk dipindahkan. Kadang-kala sutera digunakan, tetapi biasanya terlampau mahal untuk digunakan secara meluas. Kebanyakan bahan di atas jarang didapati dan mahal harganya.

Pegawai istana China, Cai Lun menggambarkan kaedah penghasilan kertas moden pada 105 M; dia merupakan orang pertama menyebut kaedah menghasilkan kertas dari cebisan kapas.

Sumber lain meletakkan penciptaan kertas di China pada 150 SM. Ia merebak dengan perlahan di luar China; kebudayaan Asia Timur lain, walaupun setelah mengunakan kertas, tidak dapat memikirkan dengan sendiri bagaimana menghasilkannya; arahan mengenai proses penghasilan diperlukan, dan orang-orang China enggan berkongsi rahsianya. Teknologi ini pertama sekali dipindahkan ke Korea pada 600 dan kemudian disebarkan ke Jepun oleh paderi Buddha Korea, Dam Jing, pada tahun 625, di mana gentian (dipanggil bast) daripada pokok mulberi digunakan. Selepas perdagangan dan kekalahan China dalam Pertempuran Talas, ciptaan kertas tersebar ke Timur Tengah, di mana ia digunakan di India dan kemudiannya oleh orang-orang Itali sekitar abad ke-13. Mereka menggunakan gentian hem dan cebisan linen.

Sesetengah sejarahwan meramalkan bahawa kertas merupakan unsur utama dalam kemajuan kebudayaan sejagat. Menurut teori ini, kebudayaan China kurang maju berbanding Barat pada masa silam kerana buluh (walaupun disebabkan buluh banyak tersedia merupakan sebab utama buluh digunakan dan bukannya kerana kemajuan sains) adalah bahan penulisan yang sukar digunakan berbanding papirus; kebudayaan China maju semasa Dinasti Han dan abad berikutnya disebabkan ciptaan kertas; dan kemajuan Europah semasa Renaissance disebabkan pengenalan kertas dan mesin cetak.

Kertas kekal sebagai bahan mewah sepanjang abad, sehingga kedatangan mesin pembuat kertas berkuasa wap pada abad ke-19, yang mampu menghasilkan kertas dengan gentian daripada habuk kayu. Walaupun mesin lebih awal telahpun dicipta, mesin pembuat kertas Fourdrinier menjadi asas kepada kebanyakan pembuat kertas moden. Bersama dengan penciptaan pen berdakwat yang praktikal dan pensil yang dihasilkan secara pukal pada masa yang sama, dan bersama dengan mesin cetak berputar berkuasa wap, kertas berasaskan kayu mendorong perubahan utama ekonomi dan masyarakat abad ke-19 di negara industri. Sebelum era ini buku atau akhbar merupakan objek mewah yang jarang dan buta huruf merupakan kebiasaan bagi kebanyakan orang. Dengan pengenalan beransur kertas murah, buku sekolah, cereka dan bukan-cereka, dan akhbar perlahan-lahan mudah didapati oleh kesemua ahli masyarakat pengilangan. Kertas murah berasaskan kayu juga bererti menyimpan diari persendirian atau menulis surat bukan lagi hanya untuk segolongan tertentu dalam masyarakat yang sama. Pekerja pejabat atau pekerja kolar putih perlahan-lahan lahir dari perubahan ini, yang dianggap sebagai sebahagian revolusi pengilangan.

Malangnya, kertas berasaskan kayu lebih berasid dan cenderung untuk berkecai apabila lama disimpan. Dokumen bertulis di atas kertas cebisan (rag) mahal lebih stabil. Kebanyakan penerbit buku moden sekarang ini menggunakan kertas bebas asid.

-Richard Hamilton-

Richard Hamilton (born February 24, 1922) is an English painter and collage artist. His 1956 collage titled Just What Is It that Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing?, produced for the This Is Tomorrow exhibition of the Independent Group in London, is considered by some critics and historians to be the first work of Pop Art.

EARLY LIFE

Born into a working class family, Richard Hamilton grew up in the Pimlico area of London. Having left school with no formal qualifications Hamilton got work as an apprentice working at an electrical components firm. Here he discovered an ability for draughtsmanship and began to do painting at evening classes at St Martin's School of Art which eventually led to his entry into the Royal Academy Schools. After spending the war working as a technical draftsman he re-enrolled at the Royal Academy Schools but was later expelled on grounds of "not profiting from the instruction", loss of his student status forcing Hamilton to carry out National Service. After two years at the Slade School of Art, University College, London, Richard Hamilton began exhibiting at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) where he also produced posters and leaflets and teaching at the Central School of Art and Design.

1950s AND 1960s

Hamilton's early work was much influenced by D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson's 1913 text On Growth and Form. In 1952 Hamilton was introduced to the Green Box notes of Marcel Duchamp through Roland Penrose, whom Hamilton had met at the ICA. At the ICA Hamilton was responsible for the design and installation of a number of exhibitions including one on James Joyce and The Wonder and the Horror of the Human Head that was curated by Penrose. It was also through Penrose that Hamilton met Victor Pasmore who gave him a teaching post based in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne which lasted until 1966. The post afforded Hamilton the time to further his research on Duchamp which resulted in the publication of a typographic version of Duchamp's Green Box in 1960. Hamilton's 1955 exhibition of paintings at the Hanover Gallery were all in some form a homage to Duchamp. In the same year Hamilton organised the exhibition Man Machine Motion at the Hatton Gallery in Newcastle. Designed to look more like an advertising display than a conventional art exhibit the show prefigured Hamilton's contribution to This Is Tomorrow at London's Whitechapel Gallery the following year.

The success of This Is Tomorrow secured Hamilton further teaching assignments in particular at the Royal College of Art from 1957-61 where he promoted David Hockney and Peter Blake. During this period Hamilton was also very active in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and produced a work parodying the then leader of the Labour Party Hugh Gaitskell for rejecting a policy of unilateral nuclear disarmament. In the early 1960s he received a grant from the Arts Council to investigate the condition of the Kurt Schwitters 'Merzbau' in Cumbria. The research eventually resulted in Hamilton organising the preservation of the work by relocating it to the Hatton Gallery in the University of Newcastle. In 1962 his first wife Terry was killed in a car crash and in part to recover from this he travelled for the first time to the United States, where as well as meeting other leading Pop Artists he was befriended by Marcel Duchamp. Arising from this Hamilton curated the first and to date only British retrospective of Duchamp's work which also required Hamilton to make copies of The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even and other glass works too fragile to travel. The exhibition was shown at the Tate Gallery in 1966.

From the mid-1960s Hamilton was represented by Robert Fraser and even produced a series of prints Swingeing London based on Fraser's arrest, along with Mick Jagger, for possession of drugs. This association with the 1960s Pop Music scene continued as Hamilton became friends with Paul McCartney resulting in him producing the cover design and poster collage for the Beatles' White Album.

Hamilton had also been the teacher of Bryan Ferry and Nick de Ville in Newcastle a few years before and his influence can be found in the visual styling and approach of Roxy Music.

1970s TO PRESENT

During the 1970s Richard Hamilton enjoyed international acclaim with a number of major exhibitions being organised of his work. Hamilton had found a new companion in the painter Rita Donagh and together they set about converting North End, a farm in the Oxfordshire countryside, into a home and studios. Hamilton realised a series of projects that blurred the boundaries between artwork and product design including a painting that incorporated a state-of-the-art radio receiver and the casing of a Diab Computer. In 1977-8 Hamilton undertook a series of collaborations with the artist Dieter Roth that also blurred the definitions of the artist as sole author of their work. Since the late 1940s Richard Hamilton has been engaged with a project to produce a suite of illustrations for James Joyce's Ulysses. Associated with this, in 1981 Hamilton began work on a trilogy of paintings based on the conflicts in Northern Ireland after watching a television documentary about the protest organised by IRA prisoners in Long Kesh Prison, unofficially known as The Maze. The citizen (1981-3) shows IRA prisoner Hugh Rooney from Belfast's Short Strand republican enclave, a "dirty protester" with long hair and a beard. Republican prisoners had refused to wear prison uniforms, claiming that they were political prisoners. Prison officers refused to let "the blanket protesters" use the toilets uness they wore prison unforms. The republican prisoners refused, and instead smeared the excrement on the wall of their cells. Hamilton explained (in the catalogue to his Tate Gallery exhibition, 1992), that he saw the image of "the blanket man as a public relations contrivance of enormous efficacy. It had the moral conviction of a religious icon and the persuasiveness of the advertising man's dream soap commercial - yet it was a present reality". The subject (1988-9) shows an Orangeman, a member of the loyal order dedicated to preserve Unionism in Northern Ireland. The state (1993) shows a British soldier undertaking solitary patrol on a street. Critical responses to the works have been divided with those both on the political left and right accusing Hamilton of naïveté. The citizen was first exhibited alongside an installation of Rita Donnagh's drawings about the Maze.

During the 1980s Hamilton also voyaged into industrial design and designed two computer exteriors: OHIO computer prototype (for a Swedish firm named Isotron, 1984) and DIAB DS-101 (for Dataindustrier AB, 1986). As part of a television project Hamilton was introduced to the Quantel Paintbox and has since used this or similar devices to produce and modify his work.

In 1992 the Tate Gallery in London organised a major retrospective of Hamilton's career with an accompanying catalogue. which provides the most comprehensive review of his career. In 1993 Hamilton represented Great Britain at the Venice Biennale and was awarded the Golden Lion.
His definition of Pop Art from a letter to the Smithsons dated January 16, 1957 was - "Pop Art is: popular, transient, expendable, low-cost, mass-produced, young, witty, sexy, gimmicky, glamorous, and Big Business" - stressing its everyday, commonplace values.

Hamilton is also known as a prolific and groundbreaking printmaker. Since making his first print in 1939, his graphic work has consistently pushed the boundaries of how prints and multiples are made. These works are shown by the Alan Cristea Gallery in London.

In February 2002, the British Museum staged an exhibition of Hamilton's illustrations of James Joyce's Ulysses, entitled Imaging Ulysses. A book of Hamilton's illustrations was published simultaneously, with text by Stephen Coppel. In the book, Hamilton explained that the idea of illustrating this complex, experimental novel occurred to him when he was doing his National Service in 1947. His first preliminary sketches were made while at the Slade School of Art, and he continued to refine and re-work the images over the next 50 years. Hamilton felt his re-working of the illustrations in many different media had produced a visual effect analogous to Joyce's verbal techniques. The Ulysses illustrations were subsequently exhibited at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, and the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam. The British Museum exhibition coincided with both the 80th anniversary of the publication of Joyce's novel, and Richard Hamilton's 80th birthday.

The Tate Gallery now has a comprehensive collection of Hamilton's work from across his career.

-Barcelona Chair-

The Barcelona Chair is so named because it was exclusively designed for the Barcelona World Fair of 1929 as part of the German Pavilion. The design resulted from collaboration between the famous Bauhaus architect Mies van der Rohe and his long time partner and companion, the architect and designer, Lilly Reich. Only recently have the contributions for Reich been acknowledged.[citation needed] The Pavilion or Barcelona Chair is an icon of the "modern classical" style. Its design was inspired by its predecessors, the campaign and folding chairs of the Pharaohs and the Romans.

HISTORY

The years after the First World War had found Europe in a turmoil and the postwar years preceding the Barcelona Exhibition were challenging for the nations. Despite or possibly because of the widespread devastation, designers, industrialists, architects, and artists were inspired by new technology, materials and possibilities. Literary creativity and with it advertising and commercial promotion and film making commenced with feverish vigor. The German Government, more than any other, after losing the war and struggling to for political stability, eagerly agreed to participate in the Barcelona Exhibition.

LILLY REICH AND MIES VAN DER HORE

Lilly Reich began working for the Deutscher Werkbund in 1912. Their raison d'etre was to focus specifically on the German design industry, its quality, evolution and promotion, She was responsible for designing and organizing many of their international exhibitions and in 1921 became the organization's first female member.

Reich and van der Rohe met in the mid 1920s and collaborated on many of these exhibition design projects until he departed for the United States in 1938. While Reich always deferred to van der Rohe in public, the reverse was said to have been the case in private. While it is naturally difficult to apportion the contributions that each made to a particular design, it is interesting and poignant to note that van der Rohe never again produced any furniture designs after their partnership ended, nor had he designed any furniture beforehand. His first patent on a furniture design was issued in 1927 and his last in 1937.

Reich's affiliation to the Deutscher Werkbund and her architectural work with van der Rohe on their exhibition design and furniture design made them the natural choice for the Commission to design the German Pavilion in Barcelona.

Government ministers and leaders and industrialists from many European countries, flocked to the Expo and King Alfonso III and the Empress Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg, granddaughter of Britain's Queen Victoria, set the royal seal of approval on the Exhibition by gracing it with their presence. Together with her consort, Prince Albert of Germany, Queen Victoria had been inspired by the Paris Exhibition in 1844 and had designed and advocated Crystal Palace Exhibition in London's Hyde Park in 1851. World Trade Expositions were nothing new, however the timing of the Barcelona Exhibition was crucial.

THE GERMAN PAVILLION

An enormous responsibility rested on van der Rohe's shoulders to produce a very special building which would unmistakably announce to the world the resuscitation of cultured Germany's prowess, and adequately showcase their creative achievements and commercial viability. The renowned sculptor George Kolbe's work was shown to great advantage as was the Barcelona Chair.

Modern technological advances in steel and glistening sheet glass, enabled their integration with marble and travertine to facilitate a shockingly futuristic edifice of balanced modernistic linear beauty. Juxtaposed in a very different way from the claustrophobic Victorian era from which they were barely emerging, the senses of the public must have been awestruck.

A VERY SPECIAL CHAIR

Catapulting its ancient and regal design right into the present time and beyond, with great flair and brilliance, the designers enjoyed instant acclaim. the Chair was shown off perfectly in the environment of van der Rohe's Pavilion. It was immediately recognized for its great style by highly influential, educated and cultured exhibition visitors. Royal visitors, it is said, did not actually take advantage of this newly designed seating accommodation, but the chair quickly attained the reputation of being "a design worthy of kings".

MATERIAL AND MANUFACTURE

Predating the advent of stainless steel and seamless ground welding, the frame was designed to be bolted together. It was then re-designed by van der Rohe in 1950, using the newly developed stainless steel, and allowing the frame to be formed by a seamless piece of metal giving it the smooth lines we know and see today. Bovine leather has replaced the more expensive ivory colored pigskin which was used for the original pieces. Three years later, (and six years after Reich's death), the design went into commercial production and van der Rohe licensed the rights of reproduction to Knoll who are the current licensed manufacturer of the Barcelona Chair and also own the trade mark.

PHILOSOPHY AND ECONOMIC

Although many architects and furniture designers of the Bauhaus era, were intent on providing well designed homes and impeccably manufactured furnishings for the 'common man', (and van der Rohe was very much in agreement with this philosophy), it was and still is not possible to do this in the case of the Barcelona Chair as the materials and labor are too expensive. Its tufted and buttoned, supple high quality leather cushions are hand sewn and individually stitched and piped require twenty eight hours of highly skilled labor to produce.

The timeless, iconic Chair has never ceased to be in production and has always been a 'must have' for both wealthy aficionados as well as architects and designers. Ottomans, loveseats, sofas, daybeds and benches, even inspirational versions of the chair, loveseat and sofa with arms have been added to the 'range'.

Although the original rights of reproduction were purchased by Knoll, unaffiliated reproductions of the Barcelona Chair are today manufactured by a vast and diverse group of manufacturers, each varying considerably in their price, quality and even specifics of the design.

CURRENT PRODUCTION

In the US, Knoll, Inc. owns the rights to the USPTO trademark: Barcelona®. Knoll manufactures the frame in two different steel configurations and several different leathers. The lower cost version is made of carbon steel with a chrome plate finish (approx. retail US$3900). The more expensive version is made of #304 stainless steel (approx. retail US$6000). The frame is welded into a single piece frame. Thick leather straps supporting the seat pad and chair back are screwed or riveted into the frame. The padding used is PU foam. The cushions are wrapped in leather and attached by hidden double snap buttons.

Although it has a "machine made" appearance, the chair is almost completely hand laboured. Mies van der Rohe's signature is fixed or stamped into each Knoll Barcelona Chair. The frames are made of massive suspension stainless steel. It requires both high precision and fine craftsmanship to weld and finish the joints.

Reproductions are produced by many manufacturers across the world, under different marketing names. Quality of reproductions vary greatly. Knoll's Barcelona Chair is considered the gold standard and is highly prized (and highly priced).

-Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe-

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies (March 27, 1886 – August 17, 1969) was a German architect.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, along with Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier, is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modern architecture. Mies, like many of his post World War I contemporaries, sought to establish a new architectural style that could represent modern times just as Classical and Gothic did for their own eras. He created an influential Twentieth-Century architectural style, stated with extreme clarity and simplicity. His mature buildings made use of modern materials such as industrial steel and plate glass to define interior spaces. He strived towards an architecture with a minimal framework of structural order balanced against the implied freedom of free-flowing open space. He called his buildings "skin and bones" architecture. He sought a rational approach that would guide the creative process of architectural design, and is known for his use of the aphorisms "less is more" and "God is in the details".

EARLY CAREER

Mies worked in his father's stone-carving shop and at several local design firms before he moved to Berlin joining the office of interior designer Bruno Paul. He began his architectural career as an apprentice at the studio of Peter Behrens from 1908 to 1912, where he was exposed to the current design theories and to progressive German culture. His talent was quickly recognized and he soon began independent commissions, despite his lack of a formal college-level education. A physically imposing, deliberative, and reticent man, Ludwig Mies renamed himself as part of his rapid transformation from a tradesman's son to an architect working with Berlin's cultural elite, adding the more aristocratic surname "van der Rohe". He began his independent professional career designing upper class homes in traditional Germanic domestic styles. He admired the broad proportions, regularity of rhythmic elements, attention to the relationship of the manmade to nature, and compositions using simple cubic volumes of the early nineteenth century Prussian Neo-Classical architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel, while dismissing the eclectic and cluttered classical so common at the turn of the century.

TRADITIONALISM TO MODERNISM

After World War I, Mies began, while still designing traditional custom homes, a parallel experimental effort in modernist design, joining his avant-garde peers in the long-running search for a new style for a new industrial democracy. The weak points of traditional styles had been under attack by progressive theorists since the mid-nineteenth century, primarily for attaching historical ornament unrelated to a modern structure's underlying construction. Their mounting criticism of the historical styles gained substantial cultural credibility after the disaster of World War I, widely seen as a failure of the old order of imperial leadership of Europe. The classical revival styles were particularly reviled by many as the architectural symbol of a now-discredited aristocratic system.

Boldly abandoning ornament altogether, Mies made a dramatic debut with his stunning competition proposal for the faceted all-glass Friedrichstrasse skyscraper in 1921, followed by a curved version in 1922. He continued with a series of brilliant pioneering projects, culminating in his two European masterworks: the temporary German Pavilion for the Barcelona exposition (often called the Barcelona Pavilion) in 1929 (a reconstruction is now built on the original site) and the elegant Villa Tugendhat in Brno, Czech Republic, completed in 1930.

While continuing his traditional design practice Mies began to develop visionary projects that, though mostly unbuilt, rocketed him to fame as a progressive architect. He worked with the progressive design magazine G which started in July 1923. He developed prominence as architectural director of the Werkbund, organizing the influential Weissenhof prototype modernist housing exhibition. He was also one of the founders of the architectural association Der Ring. He joined the avant-garde Bauhaus design school as their director of architecture, adopting and developing their functionalist application of simple geometric forms in the design of useful objects.

Like all other avant guarde architects of the day, Mies based his own architectural theories and principles on his own personal re-combinations of ideas developed by many other thinkers and designers who had attacked the flaws of the traditional design styles, defined new criteria, and created alternative design solutions.

Mies' modernist thinking was influenced by the aesthetic credos of Russian Constructivism with their ideology of "efficient" sculptural constructions using modern industrial materials. Mies found appeal in the use of simple rectilinear and planar forms, clean lines, pure use of color, and the extension of space around and beyond interiors expounded by the Dutch De Stijl group. In particular, the layering of functions in space and the clear articulation of parts as expressed by Gerrit Rietveld appealed to Mies.

Like other architects in Europe, Mies was enthralled with the free-flowing inter-connected rooms which encompass their outdoor surroundings as demonstrated by the open floor plans of the American Prairie Style work of Frank Lloyd Wright.

The theories of Adolf Loos found resonance with Mies, particularly the ideas of eradication of ornament and the casting off of the superficial, the use of unadorned but rich materials, the nobility of anonymity, and an admiration for the unfettered pragmatism of American engineering structures and machines.

SIGNIFICANCE AND MEANING

Opportunities for commissions dwindled with the worldwide depression after 1929. In the early 1930s, Mies served briefly as the last Director of the faltering Bauhaus, at the request of his friend and competitor Walter Gropius. After 1933, Nazi political pressure soon forced Mies to close the government-financed school, a victim of its previous association with socialism, communism, and other progressive ideologies. He built very little in these years (one built commission was Philip Johnson's New York apartment); his style was rejected by the Nazis as not "German" in character. Frustrated and unhappy, he left his homeland reluctantly in 1937 as he saw his opportunity for any future building commissions vanish, accepting a residential commission in Wyoming and then an offer to head an architectural school in Chicago. When the refugee from the heavy-handed and constricting order of the Nazi government arrived in the United States after 30 years of practice in Germany, his reputation as a pioneer of modern architecture was already established by American promoters of the international style.

CAREER IN THE UNITED STATES

Mies settled in Chicago, Illinois where he was appointed as head of the architecture school at Chicago's Armour Institute of Technology (later renamed Illinois Institute of Technology - IIT). One of his conditions for taking this position was that he would be commissioned to design the new buildings of the campus. Some of his most famous buildings still stand there, including Alumni Hall and S.R. Crown Hall, the home of IIT's School of Architecture. In 1944, he became an American citizen, completing his severance from his native Germany. His 30 years as an American architect reflect a more consistent and mature approach towards achieving his goal of a new architecture for the 20th Century. He focused his efforts on the idea of enclosing large open "universal" spaces with clearly ordered structural frameworks, featuring manufactured steel shapes infilled with glass. His early projects at the IIT campus and for developer Herb Greenwald opened the eyes of Americans to a style that culturally resonated as a natural progression of the almost forgotten 19th century Chicago School style. His architecture, with origins in the socialist International style became an accepted mode of building for large American corporations.

THE SECOND CHICAGO SCHOOL

His most significant projects in the U.S. include the residential towers of 860-880 Lake Shore Dr, the Farnsworth House, Crown Hall and other structures at IIT, all in and around Chicago, and the Seagram Building in New York. These iconic works became the prototypes for his other projects.

Between 1946 and 1951 Mies van der Rohe designed and built the Farnsworth House, a weekend retreat outside Chicago for an independent professional woman, Dr. Edith Farnsworth. Here, Mies explored the relationship between the individual, man-made shelter, and nature. This masterpiece showed the world that exposed industrial structural steel and glass were materials capable of great architecture. The glass pavilion is raised six feet above a floodplain next to the Fox River, surrounded by forest and rural prairies. The highly crafted pristine white structural frame and all-glass walls define a simple rectangular interior space, letting nature and light envelop the interior space. A wood paneled core (housing mechanical equipment, kitchen, fireplace, and toilets) is positioned within the open space to define the living, dining and sleeping spaces without using walls to surround rooms. No partitions touch the surrounding all-glass enclosure. Without solid exterior walls, full-height draperies on a perimeter track allows freedom to provide full or partial privacy when and where desired. The house has been described as sublime, a temple hovering between heaven and earth, a poem, a work of art. The Farnsworth House and its 60 acre wooded site was purchased at auction for US$7.5 million by preservation groups in 2004 and is now operated by the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois as a public museum. The influential building spawned hundreds of modernist glass houses, most notably the Glass House by Philip Johnson, located near New York City and now owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The iconic Farnsworth House is considered among Mies's greatest works. The house is an embodiment of Mies' mature vision of modern architecture for the new technological age: a single large space with a minimal "skin and bones" framework provides a steel and glass enclosure with a clearly understandable order, with interior space loosely defined by independant partitions within the overall room, free-flowing to suggest freedom of use. His ideas are stated with clarity and simplicity, using materials that are allowed express their own individual character.

In 1958 Mies van der Rohe designed what has been regarded as the pinnacle of the modern high-rise architecture, the Seagram Building in New York. Mies was chosen by the daughter of the client, Phyllis Bronfman Lambert, who has become a noted architectural figure and patron in her own right. The Seagram Building has become an icon of the growing power of that defining institution of the 20th Century, the corporation. In a bold and innovative move, the architect chose to set the tower back from the property line to create a forecourt plaza and fountain on Park Avenue. Although now acclaimed and widely influential as an urban design feature, Mies had to convince Bronfman's bankers that a taller tower with significant "wasted" open space was a viable idea. Mies' design included a bronze curtain wall with external H-shaped mullions that were exaggerated in depth beyond what is structurally necessary, touching off a conversation among some of his more zealous followers about whether Mies had or had not committed Adolf Loos' "crime of ornamentation". Philip Johnson had a role in interior materials selections and the plaza, and he designed the sumptuous Four Seasons restaurant. The Seagram Building is said to be an early example of the innovative "fast-track" construction process, where design and construction are done concurrently. Using the Seagram as a prototype, Mies' office designed a number of modern high-rise office towers, notably the Chicago Federal Center, which includes the Dirksen and Klusinski Federal Buildings and Post Office (1959) and the IBM Plaza in Chicago, the Westmount Square in Montreal and the Toronto-Dominion Centre in 1967. For the TD Centre he designed the font used on all the signage including the concourse area. The signage was still used in 2007, although is slowly being replaced as retailers update their store facades as leases turn over.

Mies also designed a series of four middle-income high-rise apartment buildings for developer Herb Greenwald (and his successor firms after his untimely death in a plane crash), the 860/880 and 900/910 Lake Shore Drive towers on Chicago's Lakefront. These towers, with facades of steel and glass, were radical departures from the typical residential brick apartment buildings of the time (interestingly, Mies found their unit sizes too small for himself, choosing instead to continue living in a spacious traditional luxury apartment a few blocks away). Again, these towers became the prototype for many more apartment tower blocks across the country designed by Mies' office.

During 1951-1952, Mies' designed the steel, glass and brick McCormick House, located in Elmhurst, Illinois (15 miles west of the Chicago Loop), for real-estate developer Robert Hall McCormick, Jr. A one story adaptation of the exterior curtain wall of his famous 860-880 Lake Shore Drive towers, it served as a prototype for an unbuilt series of speculative houses to be constructed in Melrose Park, Illinois. The house has been moved, but it exists today as a part of the Elmhurst Art Museum.

Mies last work was the Neue Nationalgalerie art museum, the New National Gallery, in Berlin. Considered one of the most perfect statements of his architectural approach, the upper pavilion is a precise composition of monumental steel columns and a cantilevered (overhanging) roof plane with a glass enclosure. The simple square box is a powerful expression of his ideas about flexible interior space, defined by transparent walls and supported by an external structural frame. The pavilion is a relatively small portion of the overall building, serving as a symbolic architectural entry point and monumental gallery for larger scale art. A large podium building below the pavilion accommodates most of the buildings actual built area in more functional spaces for galleries, support and utilitarian rooms.

The campus of Whitney Young High School and the adjacent Chicago Police Academy are two examples of the influence van der Rohe had on Chicago architecture.

FURNITURE

Mies designed modern furniture pieces using new industrial technologies that have become popular classics, such as the Barcelona chair and table, and the Brno chair. His furniture is known for fine craftsmanship, a mix of traditional luxurious fabrics like leather combined with modern chrome frames, and a distinct separation of the supporting structure and the supported surfaces, often employing cantilevers to enhance the feeling of lightness created by delicate structural frames. During this period, he collaborated closely with interior designer and companion Lilly Reich.

MIES AS EDUCATOR

Mies played a significant role as an educator, believing his architectural language could be learned, then applied to design any type of modern building. He worked personally and intensively on prototype solutions, and then allowed his students, both in school and his office, to develop derivative solutions for specific projects under his guidance. But when none was able to match the genius and poetic quality of his own work, he agonized about where his educational method had gone wrong.

Mies placed great importance on education of architects who could carry on his design principles. He devoted a great deal of time and effort leading the architecture program at IIT. Mies served on the initial Advisory Board of the Graham Foundation in Chicago. His own practice was based on intensive personal involvement in design efforts to create prototype solutions for building types (860 Lake Shore Dr, the Farnsworth, Seagram, S.R. Crown Hall, The New National Gallery), then allowing his studio designers to develop derivative buildings under his supervision. Mies's grandson Dirk Lohan and two partners led the firm after he died in 1969. Lohan, who had collaborated with Mies on the New National Gallery, continued with existing projects but soon led the firm on his own independent path. Other disciples continued his teachings for a few years, notably Gene Summers, David Haid, Myron Goldsmith, Jaques Brownsom, Helmut Jahn, and other architects at the firms of C.F. Murphy and Skidmore Owings & Merrill.

But while Mies' work had enormous influence and critical recognition, his approach failed to sustain a creative force as a style after his death and was eclipsed by the new wave of Post Modernism by the 1980s. He had hoped his architecture would serve as a universal model that could be easily imitated, but the aesthetic power of his best buildings proved impossible to match, instead resulting mostly in drab and uninspired structures. The failure of his followers to meet his high standard may have contributed to demise of Modernism and the rise of new competing design theories, notably Postmodernism; alternatively, his disregard for costs, context, and his clients' needs may have damaged Modernism's reputation along with his own.

DEATH

Over the last twenty years of his life, Mies developed and built his vision of a monumental "skin and bones" architecture that reflected his goal to provide the individual a place to fulfill himself in the modern era. Mies sought to create free and open spaces, enclosed within a structural order with minimal presence. Mies van der Rohe died in 1969, and was buried near Chicago's other famous architects in Uptown's Graceland Cemetery.