title: Roberto Benigni

text: Overcome with giddy delight after "Life Is Beautiful" was announced as the Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars, Benigni climbed over and then stood on the backs of the seats in front of him and applauded the audience before proceeding to the stage. After winning his Best Actor Oscar later in the evening, he said in his acceptance speech, "This is a terrible mistake because I used up all my English!" To close his speech, Benigni quoted the closing lines of Dante's "Divine Comedy", referencing "the love that moves the sun and all the stars." At the following year's ceremony, when he read the nominees for Best Actress (won by Hilary Swank for "Boys Don't Cry"), host Billy Crystal playfully appeared behind him with a large net to restrain Benigni if he got excessive with his antics again. On a 1999 episode of "Saturday Night Live", host Ray Romano played him in a sketch parodying his giddy behavior at the ceremony.


title: Roberto Benigni

text: Benigni played one of the main characters in "Asterix and Obelix vs Caesar" as Detritus, a corrupt Roman provincial governor who wants to kill Julius Caesar, thereby seizing control of the Roman Republic.


title: Roberto Benigni

text: As a director, his 2002 film "Pinocchio," the most expensive film in Italian cinema, performed well in Italy, but it bombed in North America, with a 0% critics' score at Rotten Tomatoes. He was also named as the Worst Actor for his role as Pinocchio, in the 23rd Golden Raspberry Awards. The original Italian version received six nominations at the David di Donatello Awards, winning two, as well as winning one of the two awards it was nominated for at the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists.


title: Roberto Benigni

text: That same year, he gave a typically energetic and revealing interview to Canadian filmmaker Damian Pettigrew for "" (2002), a cinematic portrait of the maestro that was nominated for Best Documentary at the European Film Awards, Europe's equivalent of the Oscars. The film went on to win the prestigious Rockie Award for Best Arts Documentary at the Banff World Television Festival (2002) and the "Coup de Coeur" at the International Sunnyside of the Doc Marseille (2002).


title: Roberto Benigni

text: In 2003, Benigni was honored by the (NIAF), receiving the Foundation's NIAF Special Achievement Award in Entertainment.


title: Roberto Benigni

text: His film "La tigre e la neve" ("The Tiger and the Snow," 2005) is a love story set during the initial stage of the Iraq War.


title: Roberto Benigni

text: On 15 October 2005, he performed an impromptu strip tease on Italy's most watched evening news program, removing his shirt and draping it over the newscaster's shoulders. Prior to removing his shirt, Benigni had already hijacked the opening credits of the news program, jumping behind the newscaster and announcing: "Berlusconi has resigned!" (Benigni is an outspoken critic of media tycoon and then former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.) The previous day, he had led a crowd of thousands in Rome on Friday in protest at the centre-right government's decision to cut state arts funding by 35 per cent.


title: Roberto Benigni

text: On 2 February 2007, he was awarded the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa by the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. On 22 April 2008, the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa was conferred on him by the University of Malta, celebrated by a "Settimana Dantesca" including Benigni's first stage appearance at a university and the premiere of his performing with Dante scholar Robert Hollander.


title: Roberto Benigni

text: Benigni is an improvisatory poet ("poesia estemporanea" is a form of art popularly followed and practised in Tuscany), appreciated for his explanation and recitations of Dante's "Divina Commedia" from memory.


title: Roberto Benigni

text: During 2006 and 2007, Benigni had a lot of success touring Italy with his 90-minute "one-man show" "TuttoDante" ("Everything About Dante"). Combining current events and memories of his past narrated with an ironic tone, Benigni then begins a journey of poetry and passion through the world of the Divine Comedy.


title: Roberto Benigni

text: "TuttoDante" has been performed in numerous Italian piazzas, arenas, and stadiums for a total of 130 shows, with an estimated audience of about one million spectators. Over 10 million more spectators watched the TV show, "Il V canto dell’Inferno" ("The 5th Song of Hell"), broadcast by Rai Uno on 29 November 2007, with re-runs on Rai International.


title: Roberto Benigni

text: Benigni began North American presentations of "TuttoDante" with an announcement that he learned English to bring the gift of Dante's work to English speakers. The English performance incorporates dialectic discussion of language and verse and is a celebration of modernity and the concept of human consciousness as created by language.


title: Roberto Benigni

text: Benigni brought "TuttoDante" to the United States, Canada and Argentina in the TuttoDante Tour between 2008 and 2009 with performances in San Francisco, Boston and Chicago. Benigni was feted in San Francisco at a special reception held by the National Italian American Foundation in his honour on 24 May 2009. Following his U.S. premiere Benigni performed his last presentation on 16 June 2009, in Buenos Aires, Argentina where he was awarded "Honorary Citizenship of the City of Buenos Aires" in a ceremony held at the Legislative Palace in homage to the notable Italian diaspora and culture in Argentina.


title: Roberto Benigni

text: Benigni is also a singer-songwriter. Among his recorded performances are versions of Paolo Conte's songs.


title: Roberto Benigni

text: In addition to numerous film awards, Benigni has garnered honorary degrees from universities worldwide:


title: Roberto Benigni

text: The Europe List, the largest survey on European culture, established that the top three films in European culture are


title: The Wonder Years (2021 TV series)

text: The Wonder Years is an American coming-of-age comedy television series developed by Saladin K. Patterson that premiered on ABC on September 22, 2021. Inspired by the 1988 series of the same title, it stars Elisha "EJ" Williams as Dean Williams, and follows his life as he grows up in Montgomery, Alabama, in the late 1960s. Don Cheadle lends his voice as the narrator for the series as the adult counterpart of Dean. In May 2022, the series was renewed for a second season. It is currently streaming on Disney+.


title: The Wonder Years (2021 TV series)

text: "The Wonder Years" is set in the late 1960s and takes a nostalgic look at the Williams family, Black middle-class residents of Montgomery, Alabama, through the point of view of imaginative 12-year-old Dean.


title: The Wonder Years (2021 TV series)

text: "The Wonder Years" was announced on July 8, 2020, when ABC gave the project a pilot order with Fred Savage, the star of the original series, attached to direct and executive produce. In January 2021, the pilot was confirmed, with production taking place in Atlanta, Georgia. In March 2021, Saycon Sengbloh, Elisha "EJ" Williams, Dulé Hill, Laura Kariuki, Milan Ray, Julian Lerner, and Amari O'Neil joined the cast, with Don Cheadle announced to serve as the show's narrator. On May 14, 2021, "The Wonder Years" was given a series order. In July, Allen Maldonado was cast in a recurring role.


title: The Wonder Years (2021 TV series)

text: At a Television Critics Association panel discussion in August 2021, crew members revealed that the series would tackle major events from 1968, including the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. When asked about casting Maldonado, whose character at the time was speculated to be Afro-Latino like Maldonado, writer and executive producer Saladin K. Patterson said they "wanted to represent the diaspora of Blackness for sure. And some of that is in appearance and looks but some of it is just in the background and those individual stories that come from those mixes of cultures. He certainly fits into that tableau that we want to set." The first season was originally given a 9-episode order. On October 26, 2021, the first season was expanded to a full season of 22 episodes. In November 2021, it was reported Richard Gant and Spence Moore II would also star.


title: The Wonder Years (2021 TV series)

text: In May 2022, Savage was fired from his roles as executive producer and director after allegations of inappropriate conduct, including "verbal outbursts and inappropriate behavior". Seven days later, ABC renewed the series for a second season.


title: The Wonder Years (2021 TV series)

text: In the U.S., the series premiered on ABC on September 22, 2021, airing on Wednesdays at 8:30pm, with availability the next day on Hulu. In Canada, the series aired on CTV. The series premiered as an original series in selected countries on Disney+ via Star on June 1. In Latin America, the series debuted on Disney+ as a Disney+ exclusive. On November 8, 2021, Hollywood Records made the show's theme song available to stream and download. The song is written by Roahn Hylton and Jacob Yoffee and features vocals by Scotty Granger.


title: The Wonder Years (2021 TV series)

text: Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 75 out of 100 based on 18 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews."


title: The Wonder Years (2021 TV series)

text: The pilot episode was given to critics to review the series ahead of its premiere. In their review for "Variety", Daniel D'Addario said that while parts of the 22-minute pilot felt "rushed," its focus on the time period made "its characters' relationships feel vivid and real against the backdrop of changing times." In his final points, D'Addario gave positive feedback to the cast and said "the pilot's final insight is nicely communicated." "The Hollywood Reporter" Angie Han had similar comments, writing, "the series manages to invoke nostalgia for bygone days while also remaining relatively clear-eyed about the challenges of that period ... and it accomplishes this while delivering the cozy appeal of the best family sitcoms." Jen Chaney of "Vulture" stated "The Wonder Years" succeeds both at honoring its source material and providing something on its own, stating the series is one of the few reboots that is handled with "care, intelligence, and clear intention," writing, "This is what a smart reboot does: It builds upon what came before and honors the legacy of the original while doing something new and different. It seeks to illuminate and not just re-create. It proves that sometimes something worthwhile can be shaped out of the familiar, as long as the process is in the right hands. And "The Wonder Years" is certainly in some good ones."


title: The Wonder Years (2021 TV series)

text: Rebecca Nicholson of "The Guardian" gave the series a grade of 4 out of 5 stars and found it to be a charming and funny reboot, praising the humor and the characters, writing, "Happily, "The Wonder Years" has been done with care and innovation, and taps into the nostalgic appeal of the original late 80s/early 90s sitcom, while carving out a new path." Joyce Slaton of "Common Sense Media" rated the series 4 out of 5, praised the depiction of positive messages and role models, citing integrity and dignity, and applauded the diverse representations across the characters. Dave Nemetz of "TVLine" gave the pilot episode a "B," praising "The Wonder Years" for its vintage soundtrack, comedic tone, and focus on minorities for a story set in the 1960s. Nemetz summarized the series as "a decent enough remake, but one that lacks the groundbreaking verve of the original and pulls its punches a bit."


title: Helen George

text: Helen Elizabeth George (born 19 June 1984) is an English actress, best known for playing Trixie Franklin on the BBC drama series "Call the Midwife". In 2015, she participated in the thirteenth series of BBC One's "Strictly Come Dancing"; she was paired with Aljaž Skorjanec, and finished in sixth place. She was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards for her contribution to the cast recording of "Cinderella".


title: Helen George

text: George was born in Harborne, Birmingham, to political science professor Neil Thomas and social worker Margareth Thomas. She has a sister, Elizabeth, a veterinarian.


title: Helen George

text: Raised in Winchester, Hampshire, she attended Henry Beaufort School in 1995 and studied ballet as a child, eventually becoming a junior associate at Birmingham Royal Ballet, and was active in sports, competing in the long jump. As a child she dreamed of being the first female manager of Aston Villa football club.


title: Helen George

text: George decided that she wanted to work in musical theatre at the age of 15, when she saw a production of "Les Misérables". She is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, having formerly attended the Henry Beaufort School, Winchester between 1995 and 2000. George also attended Birmingham School of Acting.


title: Helen George

text: George attended the Royal Academy of Music, London, studying musical theatre. She gained her first role some two weeks after graduation in the play "The Woman in White". She was a backing singer for Elton John during a tour. She sang at venues including both Wembley Arena and the Royal Albert Hall.


title: Helen George

text: George was cast in the role of Trixie on the BBC One series "Call the Midwife", based on the book by Jennifer Worth. She was daunted by the prospect of working with the likes of Pam Ferris and Jenny Agutter. As part of the role she was trained in the medical techniques of the 1950s, including how to deliver a baby. In 2012, she underwent a press tour in the United States to promote the series there. She also starred in the music video for singer Birdy's cover of "1901".


title: Helen George

text: In August 2015, George was announced as one of the celebrities who would compete in the thirteenth series of "Strictly Come Dancing". She was partnered with professional dancer Aljaž Škorjanec. Despite continuously getting high remarks from the judges, George was eliminated in week 11, finishing in sixth place.


title: Helen George

text: In May 2020, she sang "(There'll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover" at Buckingham Palace in a BBC broadcast marking the 75th anniversary of VE Day.


title: Helen George

text: In April 2016, she began dating her "Call the Midwife" co-star Jack Ashton when they went to South Africa to film the show's Christmas special. Their daughter, Wren Ivy, was born in September 2017. During her pregnancy with Wren, George was diagnosed with ICP. Due to this complication, she delivered Wren three weeks early via elective caesarean section. She is a patron of the charity ICP Support. In June 2021, George announced on Instagram that she was pregnant with her second child. Another daughter, Lark, was born in November 2021.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously expanding collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions throughout the year. The museum was established by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in 1939 as the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, under the guidance of its first director, Hilla von Rebay. The museum adopted its current name in 1952, three years after the death of its founder Solomon R. Guggenheim.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: The museum's building, a landmark work of 20th-century architecture designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, drew controversy for the unusual shape of its display spaces and took 15 years to design and build; it was completed in 1959. It consists of a six-story, bowl-shaped main gallery to the south, a four-story "monitor" to the north, and a ten-story annex to the northeast. The main gallery contains a six-story helical ramp that extends along its perimeter, as well as a central ceiling skylight. The Thannhauser Collection is housed within the top three stories of the monitor, and there are additional galleries in the annex and a learning center in the basement. The building underwent expansion and extensive renovations from 1990 to 1992, when the annex was built, and it was renovated again from 2005 to 2008.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: The museum's collection has grown over the decades and is founded upon several important private collections, beginning with that of Solomon R. Guggenheim. The collection, which includes around 8,000 works , is shared with sister museums in the Spanish city of Bilbao and elsewhere. In 2013, nearly 1.2 million people visited the museum, and it hosted the most popular exhibition in New York City.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: Solomon R. Guggenheim, a member of a wealthy mining family, had been collecting works of the old masters since the 1890s. In 1926, he met artist Hilla von Rebay, who introduced him to European avant-garde art, in particular abstract art that she felt had a spiritual and utopian aspect (non-objective art). Guggenheim completely changed his collecting strategy, turning to the work of Wassily Kandinsky, among others. He began to display his collection to the public at his apartment in the Plaza Hotel in New York City. Guggenheim and Rebay initially considered building a museum at Rockefeller Center in Manhattan. As the collection grew, Guggenheim established the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, in 1937, to foster the appreciation of modern art.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: The foundation's first venue for the display of art, the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, opened in 1939 under the direction of Rebay, at 24 East 54th Street in midtown Manhattan. Under Rebay's guidance, Guggenheim sought to include in the collection the most important examples of non-objective art available at the time by early modernists. Guggenheim wanted to display the collection at the 1939 New York World's Fair in Queens, but Rebay advocated, instead, for a more permanent location in Manhattan. By the early 1940s, the foundation had accumulated such a large collection of avant-garde paintings that the need for a permanent museum building had become apparent. Rebay wanted to establish the permanent building before the octogenarian Guggenheim died.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: In 1943, Rebay and Guggenheim wrote a letter to Frank Lloyd Wright asking him to design a structure to house and display the collection. Rebay thought the 76-year-old Wright was dead, but Guggenheim's wife Irene Rothschild Guggenheim knew better and suggested that Rebay contact him. Wright accepted the opportunity to experiment with his "organic" style in an urban setting, saying that he had never seen a museum that was properly designed. Wright was hired to design the building in June 1943. He was to receive a 10 percent commission on the project, which was expected to cost at least $1 million. It took Wright 15 years, more than 700 sketches, and six sets of working drawings to create and complete the museum, after a series of difficulties and delays; the cost eventually doubled from the initial estimate.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: Rebay had conceived of a space that would facilitate a new way of looking at modern art. She wrote to Wright that "each of these great masterpieces should be organized into space, and only you ... would test the possibilities to do so. ... I want a temple of spirit, a monument!" The critic Paul Goldberger later wrote that Wright's modernist building was a catalyst for change, making it "socially and culturally acceptable for an architect to design a highly expressive, intensely personal museum. In this sense almost every museum of our time is a child of the Guggenheim." The Guggenheim was the only museum designed by Wright; its urban location required Wright to design the building in a vertical rather than a horizontal form, far different from his earlier, rural works. Since Wright was not licensed as an architect in New York, he relied on Arthur Cort Holden, of the architectural firm Holden, McLaughlin & Associates, to deal with New York City's Board of Standards and Appeals.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: From 1943 to early 1944, Wright produced four differing designs. One of the plans had a hexagonal shape and level floors for the galleries, though all the others had circular schemes and used a ramp continuing around the building. In his notes, Wright indicated that he wanted a "well proportioned floor space from bottom to top – a wheel chair going around and up and down". His original concept was called an inverted "ziggurat", because it resembled the steep steps on the ziggurats built in ancient Mesopotamia. Several architecture professors have speculated that the helical ramp and glass dome of Giuseppe Momo's 1932 staircase at the Vatican Museums was an inspiration for Wright's ramp and atrium.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: Wright expected that the museum would be located in lower Manhattan. Instead, in March 1944, Rebay and Guggenheim acquired a site on Manhattan's Upper East Side, at the corner of 89th Street and the Museum Mile section of Fifth Avenue, overlooking Central Park. They had considered numerous locations in Manhattan, as well as in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, overlooking the Hudson River. Guggenheim felt that the Fifth Avenue site's proximity to Central Park was important; the park afforded relief from the noise, congestion and concrete of the city. Wright's preliminary sketches fit the site nearly perfectly, although the site was about narrower than what Wright had anticipated. Guggenheim approved Wright's sketches in mid-1944. Wright called the planned building an "Archeseum ... a building in which to see the highest".


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: Wright's designs for the museum building were announced in July 1945, at which point the museum was expected to cost $1 million and be completed within a year. The main feature of the structure was a main gallery with a helical ramp, surrounding a lightwell with a skylight. Guests would board an elevator to reach the top of the ramp; a second, steeper, ramp would serve as an emergency exit. There would be a movie theater in the basement; an elevator tower topped by an observatory; a smaller building featuring a smaller theater; storage space, a library, and a cafe. Preliminary plans also included apartments for Guggenheim and Rebay, but these plans were scrapped. Guggenheim acquired an additional parcel of land on 88th Street that July. Wright built a model of the museum at Taliesin, his home in Wisconsin, and displayed the model at the Plaza Hotel that September.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: The building's construction was delayed, first because of material shortages caused by World War II, then by increasing construction costs after the war ended. By late 1946, Guggenheim and Rebay had redesigned the basement theater to accommodate concerts. Rebay and Wright disagreed over several aspects of the design, such as the means by which the paintings were to be mounted, although they both wanted the design to "reflect the unity of art and architecture". Wright continued to modify his plans during the late 1940s, largely because of concerns over the building's lighting, and he created another model of the museum in 1947. The collection was greatly expanded in 1948 through the purchase of art dealer Karl Nierendorf's estate of some 730 objects.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: Progress remained stalled through the late 1940s, and William Muschenheim renovated an existing townhouse on the site, at 1071 Fifth Avenue, for the museum's use. Guggenheim's health was in decline, but he refused Wright's offer to downsize the planned building so it could be completed during Guggenheim's lifetime. After Guggenheim died in 1949, members of the Guggenheim family on the foundation's board of directors had personal and philosophical differences with Rebay. Under Rebay's leadership, the museum had become what Aline B. Saarinen described as an "esoteric, occult place in which a mystic language was spoken". Some of the museum's staff and trustees wished to oust Rebay and cancel Wright's design. Wright, however, persuaded several members of the Guggenheim family to acquire additional land on Fifth Avenue so his design could be developed in full.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: To accommodate the growing collection, in August 1951 the Guggenheim Foundation acquired an apartment building at 1 East 88th Street to remodel for museum use. It now owned a continuous frontage on Fifth Avenue from 88th to 89th Street. This prompted Wright to redesign the new building yet again, proposing a multi-story annex with apartments behind the museum. The foundation also announced that the museum would start exhibiting "objective" works of art, as well as older artwork. Rebay, who disagreed with this policy, resigned as director of the museum in March 1952. Nevertheless, she left a portion of her personal collection to the foundation in her will. Shortly after Rebay resigned, Wright filed plans for the building, which was projected to cost $2 million. The museum was renamed the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1952.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: James Johnson Sweeney was appointed as the museum's director in October 1952. Sweeney expanded the foundation's collecting criteria, rejecting Rebay's dismissal of "objective" painting and sculpture. He also started exhibiting some of the works that had been placed in storage under Rebay's leadership. In 1953, the museum hosted a retrospective of Wright's work entitled "Sixty Years of Living Architecture", housed in a temporary pavilion that Wright had designed.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: Sweeney and Wright had a strained relationship, as they disagreed over basic elements of the planned building. Sweeney, who believed that the museum's architecture should be subservient to the art collection, forced Wright to redesign the museum to accommodate more offices and storage facilities. The building's lighting issues were a significant point of contention between the two men. In addition, the New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) rejected Wright's application for a construction permit in 1953 because the design did not meet building codes. Wright tasked Holden with ensuring that the design met building codes and published revised drawings in 1954 and 1956. Museum staff nevertheless complained that Wright's design did not provide enough storage or laboratory space. To save money, Wright modified the design again in 1955, though these savings were canceled out by increasing construction costs.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: Four general contractors submitted construction bids in late 1954, and the foundation ultimately hired the Euclid Construction Corporation. The museum rented the Oliver Gould Jennings House at 7 East 72nd Street and relocated there before construction began. On May 6, 1956, demolition of the existing buildings on the site began. The DOB issued a construction permit on May 23, and work on the museum building began on August 14. Wright opened an office in New York City to oversee the construction, which he felt required his personal attention, and appointed his son-in-law William Wesley Peters to supervise the day-to-day work. In practice, neither Wright nor Peters visited the site frequently, so Holden's William Short ended up managing the project.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: Sweeney wanted the new museum to allow "building up a collection which offers up a standard of judgment". He wished to change the color scheme, level out the sloping walls, and remove the clerestory windows, which led to prolonged disputes with Wright. By early 1958, Harry F. Guggenheim had to handle all communications between Sweeney and Wright, who would not speak to each other. The building topped out in May 1958, and the scaffolding on the facade was removed by that August. In the meantime, Wright published drawings of the design in several architectural magazines, as he feared that the design would be compromised after his death. Against Wright's request, Sweeney painted the walls white, and he hung paintings from metal bars instead of placing them directly on the walls. The building was Wright's last major work; he died in April 1959, six months before its opening.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: The building soft-opened for members of the media on October 20, 1959. It was formally dedicated the next day, drawing 600 visitors per hour. The building's design was generally able to accommodate the retrospectives and temporary exhibits that the museum hosted over the years.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: Sweeney resigned as the museum's director in July 1960, citing philosophical differences with the board of trustees. H. H. Arnason took over as the museum's temporary director. Arnason launched "the first survey of Abstract Expressionism in a New York museum" during his brief time as director. Thomas M. Messer, director of the Boston Institute of Contemporary Art, succeeded Sweeney as director of the museum in January 1961; he worked under Sweeney, who continued to run the foundation. Messer stayed for 27 years, the longest tenure of any director of a major New York art institution. Under Messer's leadership, the museum pivoted toward more contemporary artists, including those from Europe and Latin America. Messer was not considered "an especially controversial director", though he also did not adhere to "the blockbuster school of exhibiting".


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: When Messer joined the Guggenheim, the museum's ability to present artworks was still doubted because of the tilted and curved walls. Almost immediately after becoming director, in 1962, Messer put on a large exhibition that combined the Guggenheim's paintings with sculptures on loan from the Hirshhorn collection. In particular, there were difficulties installing three-dimensional sculptures because the slope of the floor, and the curvature of the walls could combine to produce vexing optical illusions. Though the combination proved generally to work well in the Guggenheim, Messer recalled that, at the time, "I was scared. I half felt that this would be my last exhibition." Messer had staged a smaller sculpture exhibition the previous year, in which he discovered how to compensate for the space's unusual geometry by constructing special plinths at a particular angle, but this was impossible for one piece, an Alexander Calder mobile whose wire inevitably hung at a true plumb vertical.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: Messer acquired a private collection from art dealer Justin Thannhauser in 1963. Following this acquisition, the Guggenheim Museum hired Peters to renovate the monitor's second floor. Thannhauser's collection was displayed within the monitor after the renovation was completed in 1965. The foundation auctioned off artwork from the 15th and 16th centuries, which was incompatible with the museum's modern-art collection. Rebay, who died in 1967, bequeathed over 600 artworks to the Guggenheim, although the museum did not receive the collection until 1971. To raise money for further acquisitions, such as the works in Rebay's collections, the Guggenheim also sold off some modern artwork, including several Kandinsky works.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: To accommodate the expanding collection, in 1963, the Guggenheim announced plans for a four-story annex, which the New York City Board of Standards and Appeals approved the next year. The annex was downsized to two stories in 1966 due to complaints from local residents, and it was completed in 1968. This freed up space on the top two levels of the main gallery, which had been used as workshops and storage space ever since the building had opened. Museum officials opened the top levels to the public in 1968.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: In 1971, with increasing costs and decreasing endowment income, the Guggenheim recorded a large deficit for the first time in its history. Additionally, although Wright had included space for a cafe at the southern end of the museum building, the cafe had never opened because the space had instead been used by the conservation and framing departments. The foundation proposed adding a lobby and restaurant in the museum's driveway area in early 1973 but had difficulty agreeing on the plans, which were revised that November. As part of the project, designed by Donald E. Freed, the museum closed its driveway and added a dining area and bookstore there. Amid a growing operating deficit, as well as a shortage of exhibit space, the Guggenheim announced in 1977 that it would raise $20 million over the following five years. Museum officials also planned to expand the annex on 89th Street.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: Messer became director of the Guggenheim Foundation in 1980 and continued to also serve as the museum director, promoting two curators to directorial positions. The Guggenheim renovated the Thannhauser wing in the early 1980s. Following these changes, John Russell of "The New York Times" wrote that the Thannhauser Collection "may now be said to be the equivalent of the Frick in the domain of modern art." "Works & Process", a series of performances at the Guggenheim, commenced in 1984.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: In 1982 Gwathmey Siegel & Associates Architects drew up designs for an 11-story annex on 88th Street, behind the existing museum building. The original plan, announced in 1985, would have cantilevered over the existing building. The design was downsized to 10 stories in early 1987 due to opposition from local residents. At the time, the building could only exhibit 150 pieces at once, about three percent of the 5,000 works in the museum's collection. In anticipation of the annex's construction and a wider-ranging renovation of the older building, Gwathmey Siegel also renovated the Thannhauser wing's second floor and the top level of the main gallery's ramp in 1987. The Board of Standards and Appeals approved the 89th Street annex that October, despite continuing opposition. Messer retired the next month, on the 50th anniversary of the collection's founding. The New York City Board of Estimate approved plans for the Guggenheim's annex in 1988, and the New York Supreme Court upheld the Board of Estimate's decision.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: Thomas Krens, former director of the Williams College Museum of Art, took over as the director of both the museum and the foundation in January 1988. Over his nearly two-decade tenure, Krens led a rapid expansion of the museum's collections. Under Krens, the museum mounted some of its most popular exhibitions, including "Africa: The Art of a Continent" in 1996; "China: 5,000 Years" in 1998; "Brazil: Body & Soul" in 2001; and "The Aztec Empire" in 2004. Unusual exhibitions included "The Art of the Motorcycle", a commercial art installation of motorcycles.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: Shortly after becoming director, Krens decided to spend $24 million on renovating the Guggenheim. Renovation work commenced in late 1989; initially the museum remained open during the project. The museum building would later close for 18 months. The monitor wing was restored, the 88th Street wing was converted from a conservation laboratory to a restaurant, and additional exhibition space was created at the top of the main gallery. The 89th Street annex was built as part of this project, and the basement was extended underneath Fifth Avenue. The windows were replaced, and the clerestory windows along the ramp were unsealed and restored to their original design. The building's exhibition space roughly doubled, allowing the museum to show six percent of the works in its collection.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: The renovation was completed on June 27, 1992. The museum relocated its offices to the annex, basement, and the new Guggenheim Museum SoHo, and it moved storage space and conservation activities to other buildings. The completion of the annex allowed the Guggenheim to display more works from its permanent collection, as well as temporary exhibitions. The Guggenheim Foundation acquired 200 photographs from Robert Mapplethorpe in 1992 and renamed the annex's fourth-floor gallery after Mapplethorpe in 1993.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: To finance the renovation and new acquisitions, the foundation sold works by Kandinsky, Chagall, and Modigliani, raising $47 million. This move was controversial, drawing considerable criticism for trading masters for "trendy" latecomers. In "The New York Times", critic Michael Kimmelman wrote that the sales "stretched the accepted rules of deaccessioning further than many American institutions have been willing to do." Krens defended the action as consistent with the museum's principles by expanding its international collection and building its "postwar collection to the strength of our pre-war holdings", and he noted that museums regularly conduct such sales. He also expanded the foundation's international presence by opening museums abroad. Krens was also criticized for his businesslike style and perceived populism and commercialization. One writer commented, "Krens has been both praised and vilified for turning what was once a small New York institution into a worldwide brand, creating the first truly multinational arts institution. ... Krens transformed the Guggenheim into one of the best-known brand names in the arts." The museum cut back its operating hours in 1994; this resulted in a 25 percent decline in annual attendance, even as the city's other art museums saw increased attendance.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: Samuel J. LeFrak announced in December 1993 that he would donate $10 million, the largest cash donation in the museum's history, with the Fifth Avenue building to be renamed for him and his wife. The next month, Ronald O. Perelman announced that he would also donate $10 million. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC), which had designated the building as a landmark, repeatedly refused to allow officials to place a sign with LeFrak's name outside the building. Consequently, LeFrak rescinded $8 million of his donation. Peter B. Lewis donated $10 million in 1995 for the restoration of the museum's auditorium, which was renamed the Peter B. Lewis Theater after the project was completed the next year. Lewis donated an additional $50 million in 1998, and several other trustees, including Perelman, increased their donations.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: The museum opened an arts center in the basement in 2001; originally named for the Sackler family, it was renamed the Gail May Engelberg Center for Arts Education in 2022. Also in 2001, as part of a Frank Gehry retrospective at the museum, Gehry designed a canopy, which was installed outside the fifth floor. It remained in place for six years after the retrospective ended.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: By 2004, museum officials were raising $25 million for another restoration of the building and had hired Swanke Hayden Connell Architects to survey the building. By then, the structure had developed numerous leaks. Officials started renovating the museum in September 2005 to repair cracks and modernize systems and exterior details, after architects and engineers determined that the building was structurally sound. The restoration mainly consisted of exterior and infrastructure upgrades, preserving as many historical details as possible while allowing museum operations to continue. On September 22, 2008, the Guggenheim celebrated the project's completion with the premiere of artist Jenny Holzer's tribute "For the Guggenheim". The renovation had cost $29 million and was funded by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation's board of trustees, the city's Department of Cultural Affairs, the New York state government, and MAPEI Corporation.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: Meanwhile, during the early 2000s, Krens was involved in a long-running dispute with Lewis, who was also chairman of the foundation's board of directors. When admission declined by 60 percent following the September 11 attacks in 2001, the museum faced budgetary deficits, as one-quarter of its revenue came from ticket sales. Lewis donated $12 million to the museum in 2002 under the condition that Krens tighten the budget. Despite having given $77 million, more than any other donor in the Guggenheim's history, Lewis did not have as much influence over the board's decisions as did top donors at the city's other art museums. Lewis resigned from the board of directors in 2005, expressing opposition to Krens's plans for additional museums around the world.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: Longtime curator Lisa Dennison was hired as the museum's new director in 2005, working under Krens, who continued to direct the foundation. By 2006, the museum had a $35 million deficit in its operating budget, even as Dennison rejected the idea of funding exhibits through corporate sponsorships. Dennison resigned in July 2007 to work at auction house Sotheby's. Tensions between Krens and the board continued, and Krens stepped down as the director of the foundation in February 2008.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: Richard Armstrong, former director of the Carnegie Museum of Art, became the director of the museum and the foundation in November 2008. "The New York Times" said the Guggenheim Foundation had selected Armstrong because his "calmer, steadier presence" contrasted with the "nearly 20 often tumultuous years of Mr. Krens’s maverick vision". In addition to its permanent collections, which continue to grow, the foundation administers loan exhibitions and co-organizes exhibitions with other museums to foster public outreach. The museum hosted exhibitions such as "America" (2016), one of the smallest exhibits ever hosted in the Guggenheim.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: About 140 maintenance workers and art installers joined a labor union in 2019, marking the first time that the museum's employees had unionized. The same year, Chaédria LaBouvier became the first black woman curator to create a solo exhibition and first black person to write a text published by the museum. She accused the museum of racism and alleged that, among other things, officials withheld resources and refused to let journalists interview her. Within a month of these criticisms, the museum hired its first full-time black curator, Ashley James. The museum's chief curator and deputy director, Nancy Spector, resigned in 2020, following accusations that Spector had racially discriminated against LaBouvier. The Guggenheim approved a plan for increasing racial diversity in August 2020, and it hired a "chief culture and inclusion officer" in 2021.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Guggenheim closed in March 2020. It reopened that October, recording a monthly net loss of $1.4 million while it was closed. The museum fired numerous staff members during the pandemic. Armstrong announced in mid-2022 that he plans to resign in 2023.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: Wright's design for the Guggenheim Museum incorporated geometric motifs, such as squares, circles, rectangles, triangles and lozenges. The massing contains two spiraling structures, the six-story main gallery to the south and the smaller "monitor" to the north, which are connected by a "bridge" on the second story. The ten-story rectangular annex, to the northeast, appears behind the spiraling structures as viewed from Central Park.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: The building embodies Wright's attempts "to render the inherent plasticity of organic forms in architecture". Wright's design included details inspired by nature, although it also expresses his take on modernist architecture's rigid geometry. Wright described a symbolic meaning to the building's shapes: "[T]hese geometric forms suggest certain human ideas, moods, sentiments – as for instance: the circle, infinity; the triangle, structural unity; the spiral, organic progress; the square, integrity." Forms echo one another throughout: oval-shaped columns, for example, reiterate the geometry of the fountain. Circularity is the leitmotif, from the main gallery to the inlays in the museum's terrazzo floors.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: Wright originally wanted to construct a marble facade, but builder George N. Cohen constructed the facade of gunite, a type of sprayed concrete, as a cost-cutting measure. Wright's and Cohen's names appear on a tile placed along the building's exterior; this is likely the only time when Wright and a builder shared credit for a building's construction. Wright had also proposed a red-colored exterior, which was never realized. Instead, the facade was covered in an ivory-colored coating of vinyl plastic, known as a "cocoon". The engineers involved in the original construction thought that the "cocoon" would not crack, so the facade was built without expansion joints; they were wrong: the facade cracked in subsequent years. During subsequent renovations, conservators found that the facade was originally painted brownish yellow, which was covered with numerous coats of white or off-white paint over the years.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: The sidewalk in front of the museum acts as a forecourt, with metal circles inset into its surface, similar in design to the floor inside the museum. Next to the sidewalk are curving parapets that surround planting beds, some of which are below ground level. The planting beds originally contained shrubs, sycamore trees, and other vegetation.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: The museum's main entrance is at the center of the Fifth Avenue facade. It consists of an aluminum-framed glass wall with several doors, recessed within a low foyer. A doorway directly in front of the entrance leads to the bookstore, while the museum galleries are accessed by doors to the right. Above the main entrance is a "bridge" connecting the main gallery and monitor building, which is supported by several lozenge-shaped piers. The underside of the bridge contains recessed lighting that illuminates the main entrance. The main entrance was originally the entrance to a driveway that curved toward 89th Street, with separate entrances to the monitor and main gallery. The glass wall was installed after the driveway was closed in the 1970s, and the museum's bookstore was placed directly behind the wall. To the south of the main entrance is a curved wall, which forms the base of the main gallery. There is a ramp adjacent to this wall, which leads to the basement auditorium.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: At the southeast corner of the museum, on 88th Street, is a rectangular structure, which contains no openings except for five circular portals at ground level. The structure contains the museum's cafe, which was part of Wright's original plans but was not developed until 1992. The second floor of the rectangular structure contains the High Gallery. Immediately to the east, on 88th Street, is an aluminum service gate with circular designs.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: The bridge, which carries the Guggenheim's second story, projects at the museum's southwest corner. The museum's name stretches along the bottom edge of the bridge's Fifth Avenue facade. The main gallery rises above the southern part of the bridge; it consists of a "bowl"-shaped massing, with several concrete "bands" separated by recessed aluminum skylights. From the street, the building looks like a white ribbon curled into a cylindrical stack, wider at the top than the bottom, displaying nearly all curved surfaces. Its appearance is in sharp contrast to the typically rectangular Manhattan buildings that surround it, a fact relished by Wright, who claimed that his museum would make the nearby Metropolitan Museum of Art "look like a Protestant barn". At the top of the "bowl" is a parapet, which surrounds three smaller skylights, as well as the large twelve-sided dome atop the main gallery.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: The northern part of the bridge contains a four-story wing, originally known as the monitor. Although the monitor's interior is cylindrical, its exterior contains different materials and shapes on each story. The monitor's first two stories contain a round concrete facade, while the upper two stories are cantilevered outward from the monitor's core. The third story contains rectangular aluminum windows with semicircular panes at their tops. The fourth story contains a square terrace and additional windows. Above the fourth story is a fascia with lozenge patterns, as well as a hexagonal roof with an aluminum frame. The roof is interrupted by a lozenge-shaped shaft, which contains a stairway.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: A ten-story tower at the museum's northeastern corner, with offices, artist's studios and apartments, included in Wright's 1951 plan for the museum was a rectangular structure, aligned on a north–south axis, and would have contained porches at each story on the northern and southern elevations. Wright's original plan for the tower went unrealized, largely for financial reasons, until the 1990–1992 renovation and expansion. Instead William Wesley Peters designed a shorter wing on the site in 1968, with two double-height floors. This wing was made of concrete, with relief carvings of squares and octagons on its facade, and housed the museum's library, storage space, and the Thannhauser Gallery. Its steel framework could accommodate the weight of six additional stories if it were expanded.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: Gwathmey Siegel & Associates designed a 10-story annex that was finally built in the renovation. The annex, measuring wide and tall, uses the 1968 wing's steel framework. During the renovation, Gwathmey Siegel removed the 1968 concrete facade and replaced it with a limestone grid. They analyzed Wright's original sketches when they designed the tower.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: The core part of Guggenheim's interior consists of the monitor section to the north, the larger main gallery to the south, and a lecture hall beneath the main gallery. To the east of the main entrance is the bookstore, in the area that was originally part of the museum's driveway. To the south of the main entrance is a small circular vestibule, which contains a floor with metal arcs and a low plaster ceiling with recessed lighting. South of the main rotunda is a cafe, added during the 1990s renovation.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: The triangular service core, at the northeast corner of the main gallery, contains an elevator and a staircase. The staircase wraps around the elevator, which is housed within a semicircular shaft; the core also contains restrooms and mechanical areas. According to author Robert McCarter, Wright had used "complete geometries" for the stairs and ramps because he wanted visitors to experience the museum on foot. Other rooms, such as the staff kitchen, were designed with curved equipment because of the interior's unusual design. The museum's interior is generally painted white, and parts of the interior are repainted nearly every day.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: Wright designed the main gallery (also described as a rotunda) as an open-air atrium, surrounded by a helical ramp. Wright's design differed from the conventional approach to museum layout, in which visitors pass through a series of interconnected rooms and retrace their steps when exiting. Under Wright's plan, guests rode an elevator to the top of the building and descended the ramp, viewing the main gallery itself as a work of art. The ramp's design recalled a nautilus shell, with continuous spaces flowing one into another. The open rotunda allows guests to observe works on different levels simultaneously and interact with guests on other levels. Structurally, the ramp acts like an enormous arch, preventing the columns in the main gallery from collapsing inward.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: The main gallery has a beige terrazzo floor with inlaid metal circles. At ground level are information and admissions desks made of wood, and windows facing southeast toward Fifth Avenue and 88th Street. The ramp, made of reinforced concrete, ascends at a 5 percent slope from ground level and rises one story, where it wraps around a planter and passes through a double-height archway. It rises five additional stories before ending at the sixth floor, with a total length of . Its width increases as it ascends, from on the lowest level to at the top. The ramp protrudes into the northeastern corner of the atrium at each story, forming a rounded balcony. There are connections to other galleries at the second and fourth stories, and to a triangular gallery at the sixth story. The ramp has a low parapet along the atrium side, measuring high.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: The walls and ceilings are made of plaster. To create the concrete walls, workers sprayed several layers of concrete onto plywood moldings, each layer being reinforced with steel. Wright intended the low ceilings and slanted walls to provide a "more intimate environment" to display the artwork. The walls are tilted at a 97-degree angle, and the ceilings measure tall. Jaroslav Josef Polívka assisted Wright with the structural design, and he initially designed the gallery ramp without perimeter columns. Later in the design, Wright added a dozen concrete ribs along the walls of the main gallery, which both provide structural reinforcement and divide the ramp into sections. The ramp passes through 70 sections in total. Alhough Wright wanted the paintings displayed as if they were on an easel, paintings are mounted onto horizontal bars that protrude from the sloped wall. There is limited space for sculptures within each bay, and wider paintings frequently span the center of the curved wall.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: The ramp was originally illuminated by clerestory windows along the perimeter of each level, which were sealed when the building was completed. Each level of the ramp also contains recessed lighting on its ceiling. The domed skylight is around high and is the same width as the atrium. Metal bars divide the skylight into numerous panes. Along the dome are six hairpin-shaped "spokes", which surround a circular glass panel and connect with the "ribs" along the gallery's perimeter. These spokes divide the skylight into twelve sections. The original plans called for the dome to be illuminated by 24 floodlights. The clerestory windows and skylight were restored in 1992.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: The museum's "monitor" houses the Thannhauser Collection. Its galleries surround an atrium that is circular except for a stair hall at one end of the space. The floors are supported by columns with lozenge-shaped cross-sections. Like the main gallery, the monitor contains a triangular service core, although its core is placed at the center of the structure. The monitor was originally supposed to include apartments for Rebay and Guggenheim, but this area became offices and storage space. In 1965, the second floor of the monitor was renovated to display some of the museum's growing permanent collection. Part of the fourth floor was similarly converted in 1980. With the restoration of the museum in the early 1990s, the second through fourth floors were converted entirely to exhibition space and renamed the Thannhauser Building.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: The Gail May Engelberg Center for Arts Education, completed in 2001, covers on the lower level of the museum, below the main gallery. It was a gift of the Mortimer D. Sackler family and was originally named for them. The facility provides classes and lectures about the visual and performing arts and opportunities to interact with the museum's collections and special exhibitions through its labs, exhibition spaces, conference rooms and 266-seat Peter B. Lewis Theater. Following criticism over the Sackler family's involvement in the opioid epidemic in the United States, the center was renamed in 2022 for museum trustee Gail May Engelberg, who along with her husband Alfred Engelberg had donated $15 million to the museum.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: The basement space looks out onto a sloped driveway outside the southwest corner of the museum. The Peter B. Lewis Theater is directly beneath the main gallery and contains two levels of seating: an orchestra level and a balcony. There is a coatroom at the balcony level, separated from the balcony seats by a metal partition. The southeast corner of the orchestra level contains a raised wooden stage. The theater's walls contain embedded piers, as well as semicircular window openings. The plaster ceiling contains recessed cove lighting. When the theater was built, it could be accessed directly from the triangular service core, as well as via the driveway outside the museum.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: The 89th Street annex contains of additional exhibition space. There are four exhibition galleries with flat walls that are "more appropriate for the display of art". Each of the gallery levels, are double-height spaces. A loading dock is below the galleries, while two office stories and a mechanical floor are above. A steel-and-glass lobby connects the annex to the monitor's ground level, and ramps and passageways connect with the monitor's three upper stories. The annex is linked to the main gallery's stair tower at the fourth, fifth, and seventh stories. It also connects to rooftop terraces above the monitor and main gallery.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated the museum building and its interior as New York City landmarks on August 14, 1990, two years after the annex's opponents had asked the commission to consider such a designation. At the time, the Guggenheim was one of the youngest buildings to have city landmark status, having been completed 31 years earlier. The museum was added to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) on May 19, 2005, and was re-added to the NRHP as a National Historic Landmark on October 6, 2008. In July 2019, the Guggenheim was among eight properties by Wright placed on the World Heritage List under the title "The 20th-Century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright".


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: The Guggenheim has about 8,000 works in its collection . About 1,700 of these works are part of the Guggenheim's online collection. The museum building has a relatively small capacity; according to "The Wall Street Journal", following the 1992 renovation, the Guggenheim could show "upward of 6%" of its 5,000-piece collection. In contrast to other visual-art museums, the Guggenheim does not divide its collection into departments. The museum shares its collection with the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice and Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: The Guggenheim Museum has acquired private collections throughout its history, including those of Guggenheim, Karl Nierendorf, Katherine Sophie Dreier, Thannhauser, Rebay, Giuseppe Panza, Mapplethorpe, and the Bohen Foundation. The earliest works in the museum's collection include those by modernists such as Rudolf Bauer, Rebay, Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, Marc Chagall, Robert Delaunay, Fernand Léger, Amedeo Modigliani and Pablo Picasso. Parts of the original collection have been sold over the years; 620 of the original works were designated as part of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection in 2007. The Founding Collection contains artwork from over 60 artists, including more than 150 works by Kandinsky.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: In 1948, the Museum of Non-Objective Art acquired Nierendorf's 730 objects, notably German expressionist paintings. The Guggenheim still had 121 works from the Nierendorf collection in the 1990s; these comprise a broad spectrum of expressionist and surrealist works, including paintings by Paul Klee, Oskar Kokoschka, and Joan Miró. In 1953, the Guggenheim acquired 28 pieces from Dreier's collection, which included works by Alexander Archipenko, Constantin Brâncuși, Alexander Calder, Marcel Duchamp, Juan Gris, El Lissitzky, Mondrian, and Kurt Schwitters.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: The Thannhauser Collection, acquired in 1963, consists of 73 works, largely in the Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and French modern styles. Thannhauser's collection includes pieces by Paul Gauguin, Édouard Manet, Camille Pissarro, Vincent van Gogh, and 32 works by Picasso. Rebay also left a portion of her personal collection to the foundation in her will, including works by Kandinsky, Klee, Calder, Albert Gleizes, Mondrian, and Schwitters. The Guggenheim received Rebay's collection in 1971, four years after her death, because of a prolonged lawsuit over the collection. In 1990 the museum acquired the Panza Collection from Giovanna and Giuseppe Panza in 1990 It includes examples of minimalist sculptures by Carl Andre, Dan Flavin and Donald Judd, and minimalist paintings by Robert Mangold, Brice Marden and Robert Ryman, as well as an array of postminimal, conceptual, and perceptual art by Robert Morris, Richard Serra, James Turrell, Lawrence Weiner and others, notably American examples of the 1960s and 1970s.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: In 1992, the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation gifted 200 of Mapplethorpe's best photographs to the foundation. The works spanned his entire output, from his early collages, Polaroids, portraits of celebrities, self-portraits, male and female nudes, flowers, and statues; it also featured mixed-media constructions and included his well-known 1998 "Self-Portrait". The acquisition initiated the foundation's photography exhibition program. In 2001, the foundation received a gift of the collection of the Bohen Foundation, which, for two decades, commissioned new works of art with an emphasis on film, video, photography and new media. The Bohen collection comprises around 275 works by 45 artists, including Pierre Huyghe and Sophie Calle. In 2022, the Guggenheim and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, jointly received 100 works gifted by the D. Daskalopoulos Collection.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: Under Sweeney's tenure, in the 1950s, the Guggenheim acquired Constantin Brâncuși's "Adam and Eve" (1921) and works by other modernist sculptors such as Joseph Csaky, Jean Arp, Calder, Alberto Giacometti and David Smith. Sweeney reached beyond the 20th century to acquire Paul Cézanne's "Man with Crossed Arms" (c. 1899) and works by David Hayes, Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation operates and owns the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. The foundation's art and museum committee is responsible for proposing acquisitions and deaccessions from the foundation's collection, while the foundation's board of trustees determines whether to enact the art and museum committee's proposals. J. Tomilson Hill has served as the board's chair since 2021, while Marcy Withington has been the foundation's chief financial officer since 2018. , Richard Armstrong is the director of both the Guggenheim Foundation and the museum. The museum employed 315 full-time and part-time staff members .


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: Even before the building opened, the design polarized architecture critics and was controversial among the public. Some critics believed the building would overshadow the museum's artworks. Emily Genauer of the "New York Herald Tribune" said the building had been likened to "a giant corkscrew, a washing machine and a marshmallow", while Solomon's niece Peggy Guggenheim believed it resembled "a huge garage". Members of the public felt that the building contrasted with the character of Fifth Avenue. Other critics, and many artists, worried that it would be difficult to properly hang paintings in the shallow, windowless, concave exhibition niches around the main gallery. Prior to the opening of the museum, 21 artists signed a letter protesting the display of their work in such a space. Phyllis Mark of the "New Leader" commented that the walls and ceilings would "disorient the viewer" and noted that the museum could only display five percent of its collection in the new building.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: Art critics reviewed the structure especially harshly. John Canaday of "The New York Times" wrote that the design would be worthy of merit if it were "stripped of its pictures", while Hilton Kramer of "Arts Magazine" opined that the structure was "what is probably [Wright's] most useless edifice". Architectural critic Lewis Mumford summed up the opprobrium:


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: Wright has allotted the paintings and sculptures on view only as much space as would not infringe upon his abstract composition. ... [He] created a shell whose form has no relation to its function and offered no possibility of future departure from his rigid preconceptions. [The ramp] has, for a museum, a low ceiling – nine feet eight inches [295 cm] so only a picture well within the vertical boundaries thus created can be shown. The wall ... slanted outward, following the outward slant of the exterior wall, and paintings were not supposed to be hung vertically or shown in their true plane but were to be tilted back against it. ... Nor [can a visitor] escape the light shining in his eyes from the narrow slots in the wall.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: During his lifetime, Wright dismissed criticism of the structure, saying: "For the first time, art will be seen through an open window and, of all places, in New York". He also felt that his design complemented Central Park, particularly with the shrubbery around the new building, which formed "a little park with a building in it". Wright believed that the building would be well suited to avant-garde art, "which purported to represent space and form in a new, fully integrated manner".


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: The building also received critical acclaim. In a 1958 survey of the "Seven Wonders of American Architecture", five hundred architects ranked the Guggenheim as the 18th-best structure of more than 100 selected buildings. When the building opened, modernist architects such as Philip Johnson and Edward Durell Stone praised Wright's design, and Genauer regarded it as "the most beautiful building in America". This sentiment was shared even by commentators who questioned the building's functionality, including Robert M. Coates of "The New Yorker", who wrote: "My question is not 'Is it art?' (I believe it is) but 'How well will it house art?'". A writer for the "New York Daily Mirror" said the Guggenheim "should be put in a museum to show how mad the twentieth century is." Directors of other major New York City museums also praised the building, though some of them were skeptical of whether the structure could function well as a museum.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: In later years, the building became widely praised. Marcus Whiffen and Frederick Koeper wrote: "The dynamic interior of the Guggenheim is, for some, too competitive for the display of art, but no one disputes that it is one of the memorable spaces in all of architecture." Paul Goldberger said in 2009: "I think the legacy of this building is in the message that architecture does not have to lie down and play dead in front of art." According to Herbert Muschamp, the Guggenheim was "one of New York's most distinguished landmarks", as well as Wright's best-known design. The American Institute of Architects gave a Twenty-five Year Award to the Guggenheim in 1986, describing the museum's building as "an architectural landmark and a monument to Wright's unique vision".


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: Several writers described the Guggenheim as representing Wright's tendency toward organic architecture. According to William J. R. Curtis, the building was "the apotheosis of Wright's organic philosophy". Peter Blake commented that the Guggenheim was Wright's "only completed work of uncompromising plasticity and continuity", a claim with which Wright's biographer Robert C. Twombly agreed. Critics came to regard the Guggenheim as the best work of Wright's later career, as well as a culmination of the helical shapes that Wright had used in his designs since 1925. Spiro Kostof called the museum "a gift of pure architecture", and Edgar Kaufmann Jr. said the building was "one of the irrefutably grand achievements of modern architecture".


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: The museum building inspired other architects' designs. Several similar buildings were developed in the 1960s, although they generally used less concrete than the Guggenheim did. Deborah Solomon of "The New York Times Magazine" wrote in 2002 that the Guggenheim inspired the phenomenon of "the museum that is just walls", wherein museums competed for the best-designed buildings. The building was also depicted in a two-cent postage stamp issued in Wright's honor in 1966.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: When the building opened, it was popular with the general public. A 1960 Gallup poll found that 38 percent of visitors came for the building itself, while an additional 43 percent wanted to see both the building and the art. The Guggenheim did not keep precise attendance records until 1992. Before its 1990s renovation, the museum had an estimated 600,000 annual visitors. This increased to between 900,000 and 1 million annual visitors by the early 2000s. The museum had 960,000 annual visitors before the September 11 attacks, but attendance decreased below that level for several years after the attacks. In 2013, nearly 1.2 million people visited the museum, and its James Turrell exhibition was the most popular in New York City in terms of daily attendance. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Guggenheim had 154,000 visitors in 2020, an 88 percent decrease from the preceding year.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: According to museum officials, various surveys over the years indicated that the majority of guests came because of the building's architecture, rather than for its artwork. "The New York Times" reported in 2001 that nearly 70 percent of visitors were tourists and that half of all guests were foreigners. By contrast, the "Times" reported in 2010 that between 55 and 65 percent of visitors were from the New York metropolitan area. According to a 2018 study, 73 percent of the museum's visitors were white, while 8 percent were black.


title: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum

text: In 2009, a retrospective of Frank Lloyd Wright attracted 372,000 visitors in three months, becoming the museum's single most popular exhibit. This record was broken the next year by a Kandinsky exhibit. , the most popular exhibition in the museum's history was a 2019 exhibition of Hilma af Klint paintings, which attracted over 600,000 visitors in six months.


title: Uncle Vanya

text: Uncle Vanya () is a play by the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. It was first published in 1898, and was first produced in 1899 by the Moscow Art Theatre under the direction of Konstantin Stanislavski.


title: Uncle Vanya

text: The play portrays the visit of an elderly professor and his glamorous, much younger second wife, Yelena, to the rural estate that supports their urban lifestyle. Two friends—Vanya, brother of the professor's late first wife, who has long managed the estate, and Astrov, the local doctor—both fall under Yelena's spell, while bemoaning the "ennui" of their provincial existence. Sonya, the professor's daughter by his first wife, who has worked with Vanya to keep the estate going, suffers from her unrequited feelings for Astrov. Matters are brought to a crisis when the professor announces his intention to sell the estate, Vanya and Sonya's home, with a view to investing the proceeds to achieve a higher income for himself and his wife.


title: Uncle Vanya

text: "Uncle Vanya" is unique among Chekhov's major plays because it is essentially an extensive reworking of his own play published a decade earlier, "The Wood Demon". By elucidating the specific changes Chekhov made during the revision process—these include reducing the cast from almost two dozen down to nine, changing the climactic suicide of "The Wood Demon" into the famous failed homicide of "Uncle Vanya", and altering the original happy ending into a more ambiguous, less final resolution—critics such as Donald Rayfield, Richard Gilman, and Eric Bentley have sought to chart the development of Chekhov's dramaturgical method through the 1890s.


title: Uncle Vanya

text: Rayfield cites recent scholarship suggesting Chekhov revised "The Wood Demon" during his trip to the island of Sakhalin, a prison colony in Eastern Russia, in 1891.


title: Uncle Vanya

text: A garden on Serebryakov's country estate. Astrov and Marina discuss how old Astrov has grown and his boredom with his life as a country doctor. Vanya enters and complains of the disruption caused by the visit of the professor and his wife Yelena. As they're talking, Serebryakov, Yelena, Sonya, and Telegin return from a walk. Out of earshot of the professor, Vanya calls him "a learned old dried mackerel", criticizes his pomposity, and belittles his achievements. Vanya's mother, Maria Vasilyevna, who idolises Serebryakov, objects to her son's comments. Vanya also praises Yelena's youth and beauty, arguing that faithfulness to an old man like Serebryakov is an immoral waste of vitality. Astrov is forced to depart to attend a patient, but not before delivering a speech on the preservation of the forests, a subject he is very passionate about. Vanya declares his love to an exasperated Yelena.


title: Uncle Vanya

text: The dining room, several days later, late at night. Before going to bed, Serebryakov complains of pain and old age. Astrov arrives, having been sent for by Sonya, but the professor refuses to see him. After Serebryakov falls asleep, Yelena and Vanya talk. She speaks of the discord in the house, and Vanya speaks of dashed hopes. He feels he's misspent his youth and he associates his unrequited love for Yelena with the disappointment of his life. Yelena refuses to listen. Alone, Vanya wonders why he did not fall in love with Yelena when he first met her ten years earlier, when it would have been possible for the two of them to marry and have a happy life together. At that time, Vanya believed in Serebryakov's greatness and was happy that his efforts supported Serebryakov's work; he has since become disillusioned with the professor and his life feels empty. As Vanya agonises over his past, Astrov returns, somewhat drunk, and the two talk. Sonya chides Vanya for his drinking, and responds pragmatically to his reflections on the futility of a wasted life, pointing out that only work is truly fulfilling.


title: Uncle Vanya

text: Outside, a storm is gathering and Astrov talks with Sonya about the house's suffocating atmosphere; he says Serebryakov is difficult, Vanya is a hypochondriac, and Yelena is charming but idle. He laments how long it has been since he loved anyone. Sonya begs Astrov to stop drinking, telling him it is unworthy of him to destroy himself. They discuss love, and it becomes clear that Sonya is in love with him and that he is unaware of her feelings.


title: Uncle Vanya

text: When Astrov leaves, Yelena enters and makes peace with Sonya, after an apparently long period of mutual antagonism. Trying to resolve their difficulties, Yelena reassures Sonya that she had strong feelings for her father when she married him, though that love has proved illusory. The two converse at cross purposes. Yelena confesses her unhappiness and Sonya gushes about Astrov. In a happy mood, Sonya leaves to ask the professor if Yelena may play the piano. Sonya returns with his negative answer, which quickly dampens the mood.


title: Uncle Vanya

text: Vanya, Sonya, and Yelena are in the living room, having been called there by Serebryakov. Vanya calls Yelena a water nymph and urges her, once again, to break free. Sonya complains to Yelena that she has loved Astrov for six years but that, because she is not beautiful, he doesn't notice her. Yelena volunteers to question Astrov and find out if he's in love with Sonya. Sonya is pleased, but before agreeing she wonders whether uncertainty is better than knowledge, because then, at least, there is hope.


title: Uncle Vanya

text: When Yelena asks Astrov about his feelings for Sonya, he says he has none and concludes that Yelena has brought up the subject of love to encourage him to confess his own feelings for her. Astrov kisses Yelena, and Vanya witnesses the embrace. Upset, Yelena begs Vanya to use his influence to allow her and the professor to leave immediately. Before Serebryakov can make his announcement, Yelena tells Sonya that Astrov doesn't love her.


title: Uncle Vanya

text: Serebryakov proposes to solve the family's financial problems by selling the estate and investing the proceeds in a bond which will bring in a significantly higher income (and, he hopes, leave enough over to buy a villa for himself and Yelena in Finland). Angrily, Vanya asks where he, Sonya, and his mother would live, protests that the estate rightly belongs to Sonya, and that Serebryakov has never appreciated his self-sacrifice in managing the property. As Vanya's anger mounts, he begins to rage against the professor, blaming him for the failure of his life, wildly claiming that, without Serebryakov to hold him back, he could have been a second Schopenhauer or Dostoevsky. In despair, he cries out to his mother, but instead of comforting her son, Maria insists that Vanya listen to the professor. Serebryakov insults Vanya, who storms out of the room. Yelena begs to be taken away from the country and Sonya pleads with her father on Vanya's behalf. Serebryakov exits to confront Vanya further. A shot is heard from offstage and Serebryakov returns, being chased by Vanya, wielding a loaded pistol. He fires the pistol again at the professor but misses. He throws the gun down in disgust and sinks into a chair.


title: Uncle Vanya

text: As the final act opens, a few hours later, Marina and Telegin wind wool and discuss the planned departure of Serebryakov and Yelena. When Vanya and Astrov enter, Astrov says that in this district only he and Vanya were "decent, cultured men" and that ten years of "narrow-minded life" have made them vulgar. Vanya has stolen a vial of Astrov's morphine, presumably to commit suicide; Sonya and Astrov beg him to return the narcotic, which he eventually does.


title: Uncle Vanya

text: Yelena and Serebryakov bid everyone farewell. When Yelena says goodbye to Astrov, she admits to having been carried away by him, embraces him, and takes one of his pencils as a souvenir. Serebryakov and Vanya make their peace, agreeing all will be as it was before. Once the outsiders have departed, Sonya and Vanya pay bills, Maria reads a pamphlet, and Marina knits. Vanya complains of the heaviness of his heart, and Sonya, in response, speaks of living, working, and the rewards of the afterlife: "We shall hear the angels, we shall see the whole sky all diamonds, we shall see how all earthly evil, all our sufferings, are drowned in the mercy that will fill the whole world. And our life will grow peaceful, tender, sweet as a caress…. You've had no joy in your life; but wait, Uncle Vanya, wait…. We shall rest."


title: Uncle Vanya

text: Although the play had previous small runs in provincial theatres in 1898, its metropolitan première took place on at the Moscow Art Theatre. Constantin Stanislavski played the role of Astrov while Chekhov's future wife Olga Knipper played Yelena. The initial reviews were favorable but pointed to defects in both the play and the acting. As the staging and the acting improved over successive performances, however, and as "the public understood better its inner meaning and nuances of feeling", the reviews improved. "Uncle Vanya" became a permanent fixture in the Moscow Art Theatre.


title: Uncle Vanya

text: Other actors who have appeared in notable stage productions of "Uncle Vanya" include Michael Redgrave, Paul Scofield, Peter O'Toole, Albert Finney, Franchot Tone, Cate Blanchett, Peter Dinklage, Jacki Weaver, Antony Sher, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage, Simon Russell Beale, William Hurt, George C. Scott, Donald Sinden, Derek Jacobi, Michael Gambon, Tom Courtenay, Trevor Eve and Laurence Olivier.


title: Uncle Vanya

text: The play was also adapted as the new stage-play "Dear Uncle" by the British playwright Alan Ayckbourn, who reset it in the 1930s Lake District. This adaptation premiered from July to September 2011 at the Stephen Joseph Theatre.


title: Uncle Vanya

text: In January 2014 performed "TuBishVanya", a modern adaption that incorporated Jewish and environmental themes.


title: Mangalore

text: Mangalore (), officially known as Mangaluru, is a major port city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It is located between the Arabian Sea and the Western Ghats about west of Bangalore, the state capital, 20 km north of Karnataka–Kerala border, 297 km south of Goa. Mangalore is the state's only city to have all four modes of transport—air, road, rail and sea. The population of the urban agglomeration was 619,664  national census of India. It is known for being one of the locations of the Indian strategic petroleum reserves.


title: Mangalore

text: The city developed as a port in the Arabian Sea during ancient times, and has since become a major port of India that handles 75 percent of India's coffee and cashew exports. It is also the country's seventh largest container port. Mangalore has been ruled by several major powers, including the Kadambas, Alupas, Vijayanagar Empire, Keladi Nayaks, and the Portuguese. The city was a source of contention between the British and the Kingdom of Mysore rulers Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan, and was eventually annexed by the British in 1799. Mangalore remained part of the Madras Presidency until India's independence in 1947 and was unified with Mysore State (now called Karnataka) in 1956.


title: Mangalore

text: Mangalore is also the administrative headquarters of the Dakshina Kannada district; it is a commercial, industrial, educational, healthcare, and startup hub. The city's international airport is the second-largest and second-busiest airport in Karnataka. Mangalore City Corporation is responsible for the civic administration which manages the 60 wards of the city. Its landscape is characterised by rolling hills, coconut palms, rivers, and hard laterite soil. India's first 3D planetarium with 8K resolution display is located in the city. Mangalore is included as one of the cities in the Smart Cities Mission list and is among the 100 smart cities to be developed in India. It has an average elevation of above mean sea level. It has a tropical monsoon climate and is under the influence of the southwest monsoon. , Mangalore was ranked the 48th best city in the world to live in by a US survey, and the only Indian city in the top 50. It has its own International Airport which is around 15 km from the city.


title: Mangalore

text: Mangalore was named after the deity Mangaladevi, the presiding deity of the Mangaladevi Temple or a synonym of Tara Bhagvati of the Vajrayana Buddhist sect. According to local legend a princess named Parimala or Premaladevi from Malabar renounced her kingdom and became a disciple of Matsyendranath, the founder of the Nath tradition. Having converted "Premaladevi" to the "Nath" sect, Matsyendranath renamed her "Mangaladevi". She arrived in the area with Matsyendranath but had to settle near Bolar in Mangalore because she fell ill on the way. When she died, the people consecrated the Mangaladevi temple at Bolar in her honour. The city was named for the temple.


title: Mangalore

text: One of the earliest references to the city's name was in 715 CE when Pandyan King Chettian called the city "Mangalapuram". The city and the coastal region were part of the Pandyan Kingdom. According to K.V. Ramesh, president of the Place Names Society of India, "Mangaluru" was first used in 1345 CE during the Vijayanagar rule. Many "shilashasanas" (stones) of the Vijayanagar period refer the city as "Mangalapura". Before then during the Alupa dynasty period, it was referred to as "Mangalapura" ("Mangala" means 'auspicious'). In the Kannada language, the city is known as "Mangaluru", a reference to Mangaladevi (the suffix "uru" means town or city). Mangalore was an important centre of Indian Ocean trade on Malabar coast in earlier times. Hence it was also known by the name "Manjalūr" in Arabic. During British rule from 1799, the anglicised version "Mangalore" became the official appellation. According to historian George M. Moraes, however, the word "Mangalore" is the Portuguese corruption of "Mangaluru". The city's name appears on maps as far back as the 1652 Sanson Map of India.


title: Mangalore

text: Mangalore's diverse communities have different names for the city in their languages. In Tulu which is the region's primary spoken language, the city is called "Kudla", meaning "junction" because it is situated at the confluence of the Netravati and Gurupura rivers. In Konkani Mangalore is referred to as "Kodiyal" and the Beary name for the city is "Maikala". In Malayalam the city is called "Mangalapuran". Mangalore was officially renamed to "Mangaluru" by the Karnataka government on 1 November 2014.


title: Mangalore

text: Mangalore's historical importance is highlighted by the many references to the city by foreign travellers. During the first century CE, the Roman historian Pliny the Elder referred to a place called "Nitrias" and said it was an undesirable place for disembarkation because of the pirates who frequented its vicinity, while Greek second-century historian Ptolemy referenced a place named "Nitra". These references were probably about an area with the Netravati River which flows through Mangalore. In his sixth-century work "Christian Topography", Cosmas Indicopleustes (a Greek monk) mentions Malabar as being the chief seat of the pepper trade and "Mangarouth" (port of Mangalore) as one of the five pepper markets which exported pepper.


title: Mangalore

text: According to Kerala Muslim tradition, the Masjid Zeenath Baksh at Mangalore is one of the oldest mosques in Indian subcontinent. According to the Legend of Cheraman Perumals, the first Indian mosque was built in 624 AD at Kodungallur with the mandate of the last the ruler (the Cheraman Perumal) of Chera dynasty, who left from Dharmadom to Mecca and converted to Islam during the lifetime of Prophet Muhammad (c. 570–632). According to "Qissat Shakarwati Farmad", the "Masjids" at Kodungallur, Kollam, Madayi, Barkur, Mangalore, Kasaragod, Kannur, Dharmadam, Panthalayani (Koyilandy), and Chaliyam, were built during the era of Malik Dinar; they are among the oldest "Masjid"s in Indian Subcontinent. It is believed that Malik Dinar died at Thalangara in Kasaragod town. Three of them, Mangalore, Barkur, and Kasaragod, are in Tulu Nadu.


title: Mangalore

text: Mangalore is considered the heart of a distinct multi-linguistic cultural region, the homeland of the Tulu-speaking people. In the third century BCE, the town formed part of the Maurya Empire, which was ruled by the Buddhist emperor Ashoka of Magadha. From the third to the sixth century CE, the Kadamba dynasty, whose capital was based in Banavasi in North Canara, ruled over the entire Canara region as independent rulers. From the middle of the seventh century to the end of the 14th century, the South Canara region was ruled by its native Alupa rulers, who ruled over the region as feudatories of major regional dynasties like the Chalukyas of Badami, Rashtrakutas of Manyakheta, Chalukyas of Kalyani , and Hoysalas of Dwarasamudra. An Old Malayalam inscription (part of the Ramanthali inscriptions which date to 1075 CE), mentions king Kunda Alupa, the ruler of Alupa dynasty of Mangalore. It can be found at Ezhimala (the former headquarters of Mushika dynasty) near Cannanore, in the North Malabar region of Kerala.


title: Mangalore

text: During the 1130s and 1140s, during the reign of the Alupa king Kavi Alupendra (1110–1160), the city was home to the Tunisian Jewish merchant Abraham Ben Yiju. The Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta, who visited Mangalore in 1342, referred to it as "Manjarur" and stated the town was situated on a large estuary called the "Estuary of the wolf", which was the greatest estuary in the country of Malabar. By 1345 the Vijayanagara rulers brought the region under their control.


title: Mangalore

text: During the Vijayanagara period (1345–1550), South Canara was divided into Mangalore and Barkur "rajyas" (provinces), and two governors were appointed to look after each of them from Mangalore and Barkur. Often a single governor ruled over both Mangalore and Barkur "rajyas"; when the authority passed to the Keladi rulers (1550–1763), they only had a governor at Barkur. In 1448 Abdur Razzaq who was the Persian ambassador of Sultan Shah Rukh of Samarkand, visited Mangalore "en route" to the Vijayanagara court. The Italian traveller Ludovico di Varthema, who visited India in 1506, said he saw nearly sixty ships laden with rice ready to sail from the port of Mangalore.


title: Mangalore

text: In 1498, European influence in Mangalore began when the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama landed at the nearby St Mary's Islands, just after his arrival at Koyilandy, Kozhikode. The Portuguese acquired many commercial interests in Canara in the 16th century. Krishnadevaraya (1509–1529), the ruler of the Vijaynagara empire maintained a friendly relationship with the Portuguese, whose trade slowly grew and they strove to destroy the coastal Arab and Mappila trade. In 1524, Vasco da Gama ordered the blockading of rivers after he heard the Muslim merchants of Kozhikode had agents at Mangalore and Basrur. In 1526, the Portuguese under the viceroyship of Lopo Vaz de Sampaio took possession of Mangalore. The coastal trade passed into Portuguese hands.


title: Mangalore

text: In 1550, the Vijayanagara ruler Sadashiva Raya entrusted to Sadashiv Nayaka of Keladi with administering the coastal region of Canara. By 1554, he established political authority over South Canara. The 16th century work "Tuhfat Ul Mujahideen" written by Zainuddin Makhdoom II appears to be the first historical work written in detail about the contemporary history of Mangalore. It is written in Arabic and contains pieces of information about the resistance put up by the navy of Kunjali Marakkar alongside the Zamorin of Calicut from 1498 to 1583 against Portuguese attempts to colonize Tulu Nadu and Malabar coast.


title: Mangalore

text: After the disintegration of the Vijaynagara Empire in 1565, the rulers of Keladi attained greater power in dealing with the coastal Canara region. They continued the Vijayanagara administrative system and the provinces of Mangalore and Barkur continued to exist. The governor of Mangalore also acted as the governor of the Keladi army in his province. The Italian traveller Pietro Della Valle visited here in 1623–1624. In 1695, Arabs burnt the town in retaliation to Portuguese restrictions on Arab trade.


title: Mangalore

text: In 1763, Hyder Ali, the "de facto" ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore, conquered Mangalore, which was brought under his administration until 1767. Mangalore was ruled by the British East India Company from 1767 to 1783, but Hyder Ali's son Tipu Sultan took it from their control in 1783 and renamed it "Jalalabad". The Second Anglo–Mysore War ended with the signing of the Treaty of Mangalore by Tipu Sultan and the British East India Company on 11 March 1784. After the defeat of Tipu at the Fourth Anglo–Mysore War, the city remained under British control. South Canara district was the headquarters under the Madras Presidency.


title: Mangalore

text: Francis Buchanan, a Scottish physician who visited Mangalore in 1801, said the city was a prosperous port with plentiful trade. The main commodity of export was rice; it went to Muscat, Bombay, Goa, and Malabar. "Supari" (Betel-nut) was exported to Bombay, Surat, and Kutch. Sandalwood and black pepper were exported to Bombay.


title: Mangalore

text: Local capital was mainly invested in land and money lending, leading to the regional development of banking because the British colonial government did not support industrialisation there. After European missionaries arrived in the early 19th century, educational institutions and modern industries modelled on European ones were developed in the region. The opening of the Lutheran Swiss Basel Mission in 1834 was an important step towards industrialisation. Missionaries set up printing presses, textile mills and factories that made Mangalore tiles. When Canara (part of the Madras Presidency until this time) was split into North Canara and South Canara in 1859, Mangalore became the headquarters of South Canara, which remained under Madras Presidency while in 1862, North Canara was transferred to the Bombay Presidency.


title: Mangalore

text: On 23 May 1866, a municipal council for Mangalore with responsibility for civic amenities and urban planning was mandated by the Madras Town Improvement Act (1865). The Italian Jesuits who arrived in the city in 1878, played an important role in the city's education, economy, health, and social welfare. Mangalore was linked to the Southern Railway in 1907 and the subsequent proliferation of motor vehicles in India further increased trade and communication between the city and the rest of the country. Mangalore was a major source of educated workers to Bombay, Bangalore, and the Middle East by the early 20th century.


title: Mangalore

text: The States Reorganisation Act (1956) led to Mangalore being incorporated into the newly created Mysore State, which was later renamed Karnataka. Mangalore is the seventh-largest port of India, giving the state access to the Arabian Sea coastline. Between 1970 and 1980, Mangalore experienced significant growth with the opening of New Mangalore Port in 1974 and commissioning of Mangalore Chemicals & Fertilizers Limited in 1976. The late 20th and early 21st centuries saw Mangalore develop as a commercial and petrochemical hub.


title: Mangalore

text: Mangalore is located on the western coast of India at in Dakshina Kannada district, Karnataka state. It has an average elevation of above mean sea level. The city is the administrative headquarters of Dakshina Kannada district and is the state's largest coastal urban centre.


title: Mangalore

text: Mangalore is bounded by the Arabian Sea to its west and by the Western Ghats to its east. As a municipal entity the city spans . The Netravati and Gurupura rivers encircle the city; the Gurupura flows around the north and the Netravati flows around the south of the city. The rivers form an estuary in the south-western region of the city, from where they flow into the Arabian Sea. Coconut, palm, and ashoka trees comprise the primary vegetation of the city.


title: Mangalore

text: The city's topography consists of a plain that stretches up to from the coast and undulating, hilly terrain towards the east near the Western Ghats. The local geology is characterised by hard laterite in hilly tracts and sandy soil along the seashore. The Geological Survey of India has identified Mangalore as a moderately earthquake-prone urban centre and categorised the city in the Seismic III Zone.


title: Mangalore

text: Under the Köppen climate classification, Mangalore has a tropical monsoon climate and is under the direct influence of the Arabian Sea branch of the southwest monsoon. It receives about 95 percent of its total annual rainfall between May to September but remains extremely dry from December to March. Humidity is approximately 75 percent on average and peaks during June, July and August. The maximum average humidity is 93 percent in July and average minimum humidity is 56 percent in January. Mangalore experiences moderate to gusty winds during day time and gentle winds at night. The driest and least humid months are from December to February. During this time of year temperatures during the day stay below and drop to about at night. The lowest temperature recorded at Panambur is on 8 January 1992 and at Bajpe it is on 19 November 1974. According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the temperature in Mangalore has never reached . The summer gives way to the monsoon season, when the city experiences the highest precipitation of all urban centres in India due to the influence of the Western Ghats. The rains subside in September but there is occasional rainfall in October. The highest rainfall recorded in a 24-hour period is on 22 June 2003. In 1994, Mangalore recorded its highest annual rainfall at .


title: Mangalore

text: Industrial, commercial, agricultural processing, and port-related activities comprise this city's economy. The New Mangalore Port is India's seventh-largest container port. It handles 75 percent of India's coffee exports and the bulk of its cashew nuts. The Mangalore Customs Commissionerate collected a revenue of during 2012–13 and . During 2012–13, MRPL and MCF contributed and , respectively, to the state's revenue. Dakshina Kannada district has the highest percentage of workers employed in industry and the second-highest industry-to-district GDP ratio in Karnataka. Imports through New Mangalore port include crude oil, edible oil, liquefied petroleum gas, and timber.