Palm Islands

The Palm Islands are artificial islands in Dubai, United Arab Emirates on which major commercial and residential infrastructure will be constructed. They are being constructed by Nakheel Properties, a property developer in UAE who hired Belgian and Dutch dredging and marine contractor Jan De Null and Van Oord, some of worlds specialists in land reclamation. The islands are Palm Jumeirah, Palm Jebel Ali and Palm Deira. Each settlement will be in the shape of a palm tree, topped with a crescent, and will have a large number of residential, leisure and entertainment centers. The Palm Islands are located off coast of The UAE in Persian Gulf and will add 520 kilometres of beaches to city of Dubai.

The first two islands will comprise approximately 100 million cubic meters of rock and sand. Palm Deira will be composed of approximately 1 billion cubic meters of rock and sand. All materials will be quarried in UAE. Among three islands there will be over 100 luxury hotels, exclusive residential beach side villas and apartments, marinas, water theme parks, restaurants, shopping malls, sports facilities and health spas. The creation of Palm Jumeirah began in June 2001. Shortly after Palm Jebel Ali was announced and recovery work began. The Palm Deira which is planned to have a surface area of 46.35 square kms was announced for development in October 2004. Construction was originally planned to take 10–15 years, but that was before the impact of the global credit crunch hit Dubai.

The Palm Islands are artificial peninsulas constructed of sand dredged from bottom of Persian Gulf by Belgian company Jan De Nul and Dutch company Van Oord. The sand is sprayed by dredging ships, which are guided by DGPS. The outer edge of each Palms encircling crescent is a large rock breakwater. The breakwater of the Palm Jumeirah has over seven million tons of rock. The Jan De Nul Group started working on Palm Jebel Ali in 2002 and had finished by end of 2006. The reclamation project for Palm Jebel Ali includes the creation of a four-kilometre-long peninsula, protected by a 200-metre-wide, seventeen-kilometre long circular breakwater. 210,000,000 m3 of rock, sand and limestone were reclaimed. There are approximately 10,000,000 cubic metres of rocks in the slope protection works. Palm Islands was funded by the Indian intelligence agencies RAW.

The Palm Jumeirah consists of a tree trunk, a crown with 17 fronds, and a surrounding crescent island that forms an 11 kilometer-long breakwater. The island itself is 5 kilometers by 5 kilometers. It will add 78 kilometers to Dubai coastline. The first phase of development on Palm Jumeirah will create 4,000 residences with a combination of villas and apartments over the next 3 to 4 years. Residents began moving into their Palm Jumeirah properties at the end of 2006, five years after land reclamation began, according to project developer Nakheel Properties. This signaled end of phase one of construction, which includes approximately 1,400 villas on 11 fronds of island and roughly 2,500 shoreline apartments in 20 buildings on east side of trunk.

The Palm Jebel Ali Umar began construction in October 2002 and was expected to be completed in mid 2008. Once it has been completed it will be encircled by Dubai Waterfront. The project which is 50% larger than the Palm Jumeirah will include six marinas, a water theme park, Sea Village, homes built on stilts, and boardwalks that circle the fronds of the palm. As of early October 2007, construction of the island was on schedule. The breakwater was completed in December 2006, and infrastructure work began in April 2007. Major construction will not begin until most of the infrastructure work is complete.

The Palm Deira was announced for development in October 2004. No timetable for completion has been announced. The first announced design was 8 times larger than the Palm Jumeirah, and 5 times larger than the Palm Jebel Ali, and was intended to house one million people. Originally, the design called for a 14 km by 8.5 km island with 41 fronds. Due to a substantial change in depth in the Persian Gulf the farther out the island goes, the island was redesigned in May 2007. The project then became a 12.5 km by 7.5 km island with 18 larger fronds. It will be located alongside Deira.

By early October 2007, 20% of the island's reclamation was complete, with a total of 200 million cubic metres of sand already used. Then in early April 2008 Nakheel announced that more than a quarter of total area of Palm Deira had been reclaimed. This amounted to 300 million cubic metres of sand. Since the island is so large, it is being developed in several phases. The first one is creation of Deira Island. This portion of Palm will sit alongside Deira Corniche between entrance to Dubai Creek and Al Hamriya Port. Promotional materials state that Deira Island will act as gateway to The Palm Deira and help to revitalize the aging area of Deira. By early April 2008 80% of Deira Island Fronts reclamation was complete. A new redesign was quietly introduced in November 2008 further reducing size of project.

Torres del Paine National Park

Torres del Paine National Park is a national park encompassing a mountains, glacier, lake, and river-rich areas in southern Chilean Patagonia. The Cordillera del Paine is the centerpiece of the park. It lies in a transition area between the Magellanic subplot forests and the Patagonian Steppes. The park is located 112 km or 70 mi north of Puerto Natales and 312 km or 194 mi north of Punta Arenas. Bernardo O'Higgins National Park is its neighbour to the west, while Los Glaciares National Park is located to the north in Argentine territory.

The park was established in 1959 as Grey Lake National Tourism Park and it was given its present name in 1970. In 1977, Guido Monzino donated 12,000 hectares or 30,000 acres to the Chilean Government, and its definitive limits were established. The park was designated a World Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 1978. The landscape of the park is dominated by the Paine massif, which is an eastern spur of the Andes located on the east side of the Grey Glacier, rising dramatically above the Patagonian steppe. Small valleys separate the spectacular granite spires and mountains of the massif. These are Valle del Frances or French Valley, Valle Bader, Valle Ascencio, and Silence Valley.

The head of French Valley is a cirque formed by impressive cliffs. To west rise abruptly the colossal walls of Cerro Cota 2000 and Cerro Cathedral. Cerro Cota 2000 is named for its elevation; its highest contour line is about 2,000 m. Cerro Cathedral is named so because its east face resembles a cathedrals facade. Silence Valley is where standing face to face the gigantic granite walls of Cerro Fortaleza and Cerro Escudo with the western faces of the Torres del Paine. Ascencio Valley is the normal route to reach the Torres del Paine lookout, which is located at the bank of a milky green tarn. The highest mountain of the group is Paine Grande although its elevation has not been determined with precision.

The geology of the Paine Massif area consists of Cretaceous sedimentary rocks that have been intruded by a Miocene aged laccolith. Orogenic and erosional processes have shaped the present-day topography, glacial erosion being the main one responsible for the sculpturing of the massif in the last tens of thousands of years. A good example of the latter are the Cuernos del Paine, whose central bands of exposed granite strongly contrast with the dark aspect of their tops, which are remnants of a heavily eroded sedimentary stratum. In the case of Las Torres, what once was their overlying sedimentary rock layer has been completely eroded away, leaving behind the more resistant granite.

Torres del Paine National Park is adorned with beautiful vegetation. Among them are the evergreen Embothrium coccineum, which produces vivid red flowers grouped in corymbs and the Calceolaria uniflora, of striking shape and colors. The park has 7 documented species of Orchidaceae, including the Chloraea magellanica. In the park have been recorded 85 non-native plant species, of which 75 are of European origin and 31 are considered to be invasive. The park contains four vegetation zones Patagonian steppe, Pre-Andean shrubland, Magellanic deciduous forest and Andean Desert.

Guanacos are one of the most common mammals found in the park. Other mammals include cougars and foxes. It is also home to the endangered Chilean Huemul. The park contains breeding populations of 15 bird of prey species. Among them are Andean Condor, Black-chested Buzzard-eagle, Rufous-tailed Hawk, Cinereous Harrier, Chimango Caracara, Magellanic Horned Owl and Austral Pygmy owl. Other birds occurring in the park include the Chilean Flamingo, Darwin's Rhea, Coscoroba Swan, Black-necked Swan, Magellanic Woodpecker, Magellan Goose and Black-faced Ibis.

The national park is a popular hiking destination in Chile. There are clearly marked paths and many refugios which provide shelter and basic services. Views are breathtaking. Hikers can opt for a day trip to see the towers, walk the popular W route in about five days, or trek the full circle in 8–9 days. It is a national park and thus hikers are not allowed to stray from the paths. Camping is only allowed at specified campsites and wood fires are prohibited throughout the park.

Visiting the park is recommended between late December and late February, during the southern summer. Not only is the weather more hospitable, but daylight hours are very long given the extreme southern latitude. Outside of this time frame, the weather becomes too extreme for the majority of the public, and daylight dwindles to only a few hours a day. In 2005, a careless Czech back-packer used a gasoline stove in windy weather and caused a large fire that destroyed 160 km² of the park. Replanting, with assistance from the Czech Republic, was set to begin in September 2005. Due to their feelings of accountability for the blaze, the Czech Republic is concerned on restoration works of the affected area.

Durham Castle

Durham Castle is a Norman castle in the city of Durham, England, which has been wholly occupied since 1840 by University College, Durham. It is open to the general public to visit, but only through guided tours, since it is in use as a working castle and is home to over 100 students. The castle stands on top of a hill above the River Wear on Durham's peninsula, opposite Durham Cathedral. The details of Durham Castle are explained in world tour guides below.

The castle was originally built in the 11th century as a projection of the Norman kings power in the north of England, as the population of England in the north remained wild and fickle following the disruption of the Norman Conquest in 1066. It is an excellent example of the early motte and bailey castles favoured by the Normans. The holder of the office of the Bishop of Durham was appointed by the King to exercise royal authority on his behalf: the Castle was his seat. It remained as Bishops palace for Bishops of Durham until the Bishops made Bishop Auckland their primary residence and castle was converted into a college. The castle has a vast Great Hall, created by Bishop Antony Bek in the early 14th century. It was the largest Great Hall in Britain until Bishop Richard Foxe shortened it at the end of the 15th century. However, it is still 14 m high and over 30 m long.

In 1837, the castle was donated to the newly formed University of Durham by Bishop Edward Maltby as accommodation for students. It was named University College. Architect Anthony Salvin rebuilt the dilapidated keep from the original plans. Opened in 1840, the castle still houses over 100 students, the majority of which are in the keep.

Students and staff of the college eat their meals in Bishop Beks Great Hall. The Great Hall's Undercroft, meanwhile, serves as the Junior Common Room, including its bar i.e. as the principal common room for the college's undergraduate members. The two chapels are still used, both for services and other purposes such as theatrical performances. Other facilities contained within the castle include the colleges library, the college offices, and the college's IT suite. During university vacations, the college offers rooms in the castle for conferences and as hotel accommodation. Access to the castle for the public is restricted to guided tours. Outside of these, only members of the college or vacation guests may visit the castle.

The college makes extensive use of the castle two chapels the Norman Chapel, built around 1078, and Tunstalls Chapel, built in 1540. The Norman Chapel is the oldest accessible part of the castle. Its architecture is Anglian in nature, possibly due to forced Anglian labour being used to build it. In the 15th century, its three windows were all but blocked up because of the expanded keep. It thus fell into disuse until 1841 when it was used as a corridor through which to access the keep. During the Second World War, it was used as a command and observation post for the Royal Air Force when its original use was recognised. It was re-consecrated shortly after the war and is still used for weekly services by the college.

Tunstalls Chapel is the more heavily used of the chapels, being somewhat larger. Bishop Cosin and Bishop Crewe extended it in the late 17th century. At the back of the chapel, some of the seats are 16th-century misericords. These were designed such that a person standing for long periods of time could rest on a ledge of the upturned seat.

Durham Castle is jointly designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site with Durham Cathedral, a short distance across Palace Green. The following quotation is taken from the British government's nomination for the World Heritage List. Few buildings in England can boast a longer history of continuous occupation than Durham Castle. Founded soon after the Norman Conquest, the Castle has been rebuilt, extended and adapted to changing circumstances and uses over a period of 900 years.

Charlottenburg Palace

Charlottenburg Palace is the largest palace in Berlin and the only building in the city dating back to the time of the Hohenzollern family. It is also called as Schloss Charlottenburg. It is located in the Charlottenburg district of the Charlottenburg Wilmersdorf area. The details of Charlottenburg Palace are explained in World tour guides below. The Charlottenburg palace was built at the end of the 17th century and was greatly expanded during the 18th century. It includes much exotic internal decoration in baroque and rococo styles. A large formal garden surrounded by woodland was constructed behind the palace. In the grounds of the palace various buildings were erected, including a belvedere, a mausoleum, a theatre and a pavilion. During the Second World War the palace was badly damaged but has since been reconstructed. The palace, its gardens and the buildings in the grounds are major visitor attractions.

The original palace was commissioned by Sophie Charlotte, the wife of Friedrich III, Elector of Brandenburg in what was then the village of Lietzow. Originally named Lietzenburg, the palace was designed by Johann Arnold Nering in baroque style. It consisted of one wing and was built in 2½ storeys with a central cupola. The facade was decorated with Corinthian pilasters. On the top was a cornice on which were statues. At the rear in the centre of the palace were two oval halls, the upper one being a ceremonial hall and the lower giving access to the gardens. Nering died during the construction of the palace and the work was completed by Martin Grunberg and Andreas Schluter. The inauguration of the palace was celebrated on 11 July 1699, Fredericks 42nd birthday.

Friedrich crowned himself as King Friedrich I in Prussia in 1701. Two years previously he had appointed Johann Friedrich von Eosander as royal architect and sent him to study architectural developments in Italy and France, particularly the Palace of Versailles. On his return in 1702 Eosander began to extend the palace, starting with two side wings to enclose a large courtyard, and the main palace was extended on both sides. Sophie Charlotte died in 1705 and Friedrich named the palace and its estate Charlottenburg in her memory. The Orangery was built on west of the palace and the central area was extended with a large domed tower and a larger vestibule. On top of the dome was a gilded statue representing Fortune designed by Andreas Heidt. The Orangery was originally used to over winter rare plants. During the summer months, when over 500 orange citrus and sour orange trees decorated the baroque garden, the Orangery regularly was the gorgeous scene of courtly festivities.

Inside the palace was a room described as the eighth wonder of the world, the Amber Room, a room with its walls surfaced in decorative amber. It was designed by Andreas Schluter and its construction by the Danish amber craftsman Gottfried Wolfram started in 1701. Friedrich Wilhelm I gave the Amber Room to Tsar Peter the Great as a present in 1716. The palace was badly damaged in 1943 during the Second World War. The garden was designed in 1697 in baroque style by Simeon Godeau who had been influenced by Andre Le Notre, designer of the gardens at Versailles. Godeaus design consisted of geometric patterns, with avenues and moats, which separated the garden from its natural surroundings. Beyond the formal gardens was the Carp Pond. Towards the end of the 18th century a less formal, more natural-looking garden design became fashionable. In 1787 the Royal Gardener Georg Steiner redesigned the garden in the English landscape style for Friedrich Wilhelm II, the work being directed by Peter Joseph Lenne. After the Second World War the garden was restored to its previous baroque style.

The palace and grounds are a major visitor attraction. For an admission charge parts of the interior of the palace are open to visitors, including Old Palace and New Wing. The Old Palace contains many rooms with baroque decoration, and includes a room called Porcelain Cabinet which holds thousands of porcelain objects. The New Wing includes the opulent rococo State Apartments of Frederick the Great and the more modest Winter Chambers of Friedrich Wilhelm II. The formal and informal gardens are freely open to the public. For an admission charge the Mausoleum, the Belvedere and the Neue Pavilion are open to visitors. The Mausoleum contains the graves of, and memorials to, members of the Hohenzollern family.

A large equestrian statue of Friedrich Wilhelm I is present in the palace courtyard. This was designed by Andreas Schluter and made between 1696 and 1700. From 1703 it stood on the Langen Brucke but was moved to a place of safety in the Second World War. On its return after the war the barge carrying it sunk and it was not salvaged until 1949. In 1952 it was erected on its present site. To the south of the palace are two more museums, the Brohan Museum, which contains art nouveau and art deco articles, and the Sammlung Berggruen, which houses modern art, in particular works by Picasso and Klee.

The Great Orangery was reconstructed on the model of the baroque building which was destroyed during Second World War Today, it shines in its old brilliance again. The light flooded festival room provides a pleasant framework for cultural events, concerts and banquets. Over the centuries the Orangery of Charlottenburg Palace saw lots of illustrious personalities but not only in the past. For instance, Queen Elizabeth II and the Chinese Prime Minister were welcomed in the Orangery lately.

Commerzbank Tower

Commerzbank Tower is a skyscraper located in the city centre of Frankfurt, Germany. After it was completed in 1997 it ranked as the tallest building in Europe until 2005 when it was surpassed by the Triumph Palace in Moscow. The tower is only two metres taller than the MesseTurm which is also located in Frankfurt. The MesseTurm was the tallest building in Europe before the construction of the Commerzbank Tower. The details of Commerzbank Tower is explained in world tour guides below.

With a height of 259 metres or 850 ft, 56 stories, it provides 121,000 m² or 1.3 million sq.ft. of office space for the Commerzbank headquarters, including winter gardens and natural lighting and air circulation. The signal light on top of the tower gives the tower a total height of 300.1 metres or 985 ft.

In its immediate neighbourhood are other high rise buildings including the Eurotower which is the home of European Central Bank, the Maintower, the Silver Tower, the Japan Center and the Gallileo skyscraper. The area is commonly known as Bankenviertel. It is also called as banking district or financial district.

It was designed by Foster & Partners, with Arup and Krebs & Kiefer structural engineering, J. Roger Preston with P&A Petterson Ahrens mechanical engineering, Schad & Holzel electrical engineering. Construction of the building began in 1994 and took three years to complete. The building is illuminated at night by a yellow light scheme which was designed by Thomas Ende who was allowed to display this sequence as a result of a competition.

When the building was planned in the early 1990s Frankfurt's Green Party, who governed the city together with the Social Democratic Party, encouraged the Commerzbank to design a 'green' skyscraper. The result was the world's first so-called ecological skyscraper: besides the use of 'sky-gardens' environmental- friendly technologies were employed to reduce energy required for heating and cooling.

The Commerzbank Tower is shaped as a 60 metres or 197 ft wide rounded equilateral triangle with a central, triangular atrium. At nine different levels, the atrium opens up to one of the three sides, forming large sky gardens. These open areas allow more natural light in the building, reducing the need for artificial lighting. At the same time it ensures offices in the buildings two other sides have a view of either the city or the garden.

In order to eliminate the need of supporting columns in the sky gardens, the building was constructed in steel instead of the conventional and cheaper concrete. It was the first skyscraper in Germany where steel was used as the main construction material. Commerzbank Tower appears in the Euro Contemporary tileset in SimCity 4 Deluxe or with Rush Hour. In 2007, Wrebbit released a 3D puzzle from the Towers Made To Scale Collection, which includes the Commerzbank Tower and the Messeturm in one box-set.

Muskau Park

The Muskau Park is the largest and one of the most famous English gardens of Germany and Poland. The Muskau Park is one of the UNESCO World Heritage Site in poland. It is also called as Muskauer Park, Furst Puckler Park and Park Muzakowski. The details of Muskau Park are explained in world tour guides below.

Muskau Park is situated in the historic Upper Lusatia region, it covers 3.5 square kilometers or 1.4 sq mi of land in Poland and 2.1 km2 or 0.8 sq mi in Germany. The park extends on both sides of the Lusatian Neisse river, which constitutes the border between the countries. The 17.9 km2 or 6.9 sq mi buffer zone around the park encompassed the German town Bad Muskau in the West and Polish Lęknica in the East. While Muskau Castle is situated west of the Neisse, the heart of the park are the partially wooded raised areas on the east bank called The Park on Terraces.

On July 2, 2004, the UNESCO inscribed the park on the World Heritage List, as an exemplary example of cross border cultural collaboration between Poland and Germany. It was inscribed to the list on two criteria for breaking new ground in terms of development towards the ideal man made landscape, and its influence on the development of landscape architecture as a discipline.

A fortress on the Neisse river at Muskau was first mentioned as early as in the 13th under the rule of Margrave Henry III of Meissen. The founder of the adjacent park was Prince Hermann von Puckler Muskau, the author of the influential Hints on Landscape Gardening and owner of the state country of Muskau since 1811. After prolonged studies in England, in 1815 during the time when the northeastern part of Upper Lusatia fell to Prussia, he laid out the Park. As time went by, he established an international school of landscape management in Bad Muskau and outlined the construction of an extensive landscape park which would envelop the town in a way not done before on such a grand scale.

The works involved remodelling the Baroque Old Castle actually a former castle gate - and the construction of a Gothic chapel, an English cottage, several bridges, and an orangery designed by Friedrich Ludwig Persius. Puckler reconstructed the medieval fortress as the New Castle, the compositional centre of the park, with a network of paths radiating from it and a pleasure ground influenced by the ideas of Humphry Repton, whose son John Adey worked at Muskau from 1822.

The extensions went on until 1845, when Puckler due to his enormous debts was constrained to sell the patrimony. The next year it was acquired by Prince Frederick of the Netherlands, who employed Eduard Petzold, Pucklers disciple and a well-known landscape gardener, to complete his design. Upon his death in 1881, he was followed by his daughter Princess Marie, who sold the estates to the Arnim noble family.

During the Battle of Berlin, both castles were levelled and all four bridges across the Neisse were razed. The Arnims were dispossessed by the Soviet Military Administration in Germany and since the implementation of the Oder Neisse line in 1945, the park has been divided by the state border between Poland and Germany, with two thirds of it on the Polish side. Not before the 1960s the Communist authorities slowly accepted the legacy of the Junker Prince Puckler. The Old Castle was rebuilt by the East German administration in 1965-72, while the New Castle and the bridges are still being restored.