chunk_id
stringlengths 5
8
| chunk
stringlengths 1
1k
|
|---|---|
255_14 | While the state waited on the W&OD, work continued elsewhere. The Theodore Roosevelt Bridge opened on June 23, 1964 and in November of that year the section from Centerville to the Beltway opened. A 0.2 mile extension from the Roosevelt Bridge to Rosslyn opened in October 1966. |
255_15 | After the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) (then known as the Virginia Department of Highways) took possession of the W&OD right-of-way in 1968, they began to run into opposition as the highway revolts of the late 1960s and early 1970s took hold. In 1970, the Arlington County Board requested new hearings and opponents began to organize marches. A significant delay was encountered when the Arlington Coalition on Transportation (ACT) filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court in 1971 opposing the Arlington portion of the project. The group objected to that urban segment due to concerns over air quality, noise, unwanted traffic congestion, wasteful spending, impacts on mass transit and wasted energy by auto travel. In 1972 the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of ACT, technically blocking any construction. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the ruling in favor of ACT later that same year. |
255_16 | Again, work continued elsewhere and in October 1971, the 6.6-mile-long section from I-81 to US-340/US-522 north of Front Royal opened.
In July 1974, a final environmental impact statement (EIS) was submitted. The EIS proposed an eight-lane limited access expressway from the Capital Beltway to the area near Spout Run Parkway. Six lanes would branch off at the Parkway and cross the Potomac River via a proposed Three Sisters Bridge. Another six lanes would branch off to the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge. In November, a modified design was submitted, reducing the eight lanes to six. However, in 1975, VDOT disapproved the six-lane design. |
255_17 | The parties then agreed on experts to conduct air quality and noise studies for VDOT, selecting the firm of ESL Inc., the expert hired originally by ACT. In 1976, United States Secretary of Transportation William Thaddeus Coleman Jr. intervened. On January 4, 1977, Coleman approved federal aid for a much narrower, four-lane limited access highway between the Capital Beltway and the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge. As part of the deal, Virginia officials agreed to provide more than $100 million in construction work and funds to help build the Metro system, which has tracks down the I-66 median to a station at Vienna in Fairfax County; to build a multi-use trail from Rosslyn to Falls Church; and to limit rush-hour traffic mainly to car pools. Three more lawsuits would follow, but work began on August 8, 1977 moments after U.S. District Court Judge Owen R. Lewis denied an injunction sought by highway opponents. |
255_18 | In the late 1970s and early 1980s the highway's final miles were built. A 2.9 mile long section from Delaplane to US-17 east of Marshall was completed in 2 sections in 1978 and 1979. The 15.6-mile-long section from US-340 to Delaplane was completed in August 1979. A 12-mile section between US 17 in Marshall and US 15 in Haymarket opened in December 1979, with the gap between Haymarket and Gainesville closed on December 19, 1980. On December 22, 1982, the final section of I-66 opened between the Capital Beltway and U.S. Route 29 (Lee Highway) in Rosslyn, near the Virginia end of the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge.
The Custis Trail, the trail along I-66 built between Rosslyn and Falls Church as a concession, opened in the summer of 1982, before the highway was complete. The Dulles Connector between I-66 and the airport opened in 1984. The Metrorail in the median of I-66 between Ballston and Vienna, another concession, opened on June 7, 1986. |
255_19 | After opening, the restrictions on use began to loosen. In 1983, Virginia dropped the HOV requirement from 4 to 3, and then from 3 to 2 in 1994. In 1992 motorcycles were allowed.
On October 9, 1999, Public Law 106-69 transferred from the federal government to the Commonwealth of Virginia the authority for the operation, maintenance and construction of I-66 between Rosslyn and the Capital Beltway. |
255_20 | Because I-66 is the only Interstate Highway traveling west from Washington, D.C., into Northern Virginia, traffic on the road is often extremely heavy. For decades, there has been talk of widening I-66 from 2 to 3 lanes each way inside the Capital Beltway (Interstate 495) through Arlington County, Virginia, although many Arlington residents are adamantly opposed to this plan. In 2004–05, Virginia studied options for widening the highway inside the Beltway, including the prospect of implementing a one-lane-plus-shoulder extension on westbound I-66 within the Beltway (in an attempt to reduce congestion for people commuting away from D.C.). They later settled on three planned “spot improvements” meant to ease traffic congestion on westbound Interstate 66 inside the Capital Beltway. The first "improvement", a 1.9-mile zone between Fairfax Drive and Sycamore Street, started in summer 2010 and was finished in December 2011. For this project, the entrance ramp acceleration lane and the exit |
255_21 | ramp deceleration lanes were lengthened to form a continuous lane between both ramps. The 12-foot shoulder lane can carry emergency vehicles and can be used in emergency situations. The second one widened between the Washington Boulevard on-ramp and the ramp to the Dulles Airport Access Highway. Work on it began in 2013 and finished in 2015. The third project, between Lee Highway/Spout Run and Glebe Road, is scheduled for completion in 2020. |
255_22 | In Gainesville, Virginia, the Gainesville Interchange Project upgraded the interchange between U.S. Route 29 (U.S. 29) and I-66, for those and many other roads due to rapid development and accompanying heavy traffic in the Gainesville and Haymarket area. I-66's overpasses were reconstructed to accommodate nine lanes (six general purpose, two HOV, one collector–distributor eastbound) and lengthened for the expansion of U.S. 29 to six lanes. These alterations were completed in June 2010. In 2014–15, US 29 was largely grade-separated in the area, including an interchange at its current intersection with SR 619 (Linton Hall Road). The project began in 2004 and finished in 2015. |
255_23 | In 2015, the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) Transportation planning board added I-66 HOT lanes to their list of priority projects for the I-66 corridor. The projects have sparked opposition between residents and community businesses over the direction of this region's future infrastructure planning. The VDOT established a "Transform 66" website on regional traffic issues. Residents living within the I-66 corridor have set up "Transform 66 Wisely", a website describing local community impacts that the VDOT projects may cause. In contrast, local business groups and Chambers of Commerce located near the affected areas have voiced support for transportation improvements in the I-66 region. |
255_24 | Residents along the I-66 corridor such as Arlington County have resisted I-66 widening proposals for many years. The local Stenwood Elementary School would lose its attached field, leaving it with blacktop-only recess space. In an April 16, 2015, letter to the Virginia Secretary of Transportation, members of the 1st, 8th, 10th, and 11th districts of Congress wrote that VDOT research noted that during peak hours, 35% of eastbound cars and 50% of westbound cars are HOV violators. |
255_25 | Future federal steps for VDOT include NEPA review, obligation of federal funds, certification that the conversion to tolled facilities will not "degrade" the existing facility, and potential federal loan guarantee. The Virginia Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) is responsible for overseeing VDOT and allocating highway funding to specific projects. The board has 18 members appointed by the Governor and includes the Virginia Secretary of Transportation, Aubrey Layne, and is the group that will be making the final decision and allocating funding for VDOT's plans for I-66.
In 2016, VDOT announced that it was planning to add express lanes and multi-modal transportation improvements to I-66 outside the Beltway (the "Transform 66 Outside the Beltway" improvement project). A decision was also made to move forward with widening I-66 eastbound and make multimodal improvements from the Dulles Connector Road to Ballston (the "Transform 66 Inside the Beltway" improvement project). |
255_26 | VDOT also announced during 2016 that it would initiate on I-66 a dynamic tolling system in the peak travel directions during rush hours. On December 4, 2017, VDOT converted of I-66 between Route 29 in Rosslyn and the Capital Beltway to a High Occupancy Vehicle variable congestion pricing tolling system. The system permits solo drivers to use I-66 during peak travel hours in the appropriate direction if they pay a toll.
VDOT designed the price of toll to keep traffic moving at a minimum of and to increase the capacity of the road. Carpools and vanpools (with two or more people, until a regional change to HOV-3+ goes into effect in 2022), transit, on-duty law enforcement and first responders will not pay a toll. Prices ranged up to US$47 for solo drivers, but the average speed during the morning rush hour was , vs a year before. |
255_27 | In 2017, construction began on the "Transform 66 Outside the Beltway" improvement project. The project will add of new dynamically-tolled Express Lanes alongside I-66 from I-495 to University Boulevard in Gainesville. It will also build new park and ride facilities, interchange improvements and of expanded multi-use trail. VDOT expects the project to be completed in December 2022.
Construction on widening eastbound I-66 as part of the "Transform 66 Inside the Beltway" improvement project began in June 2018 and is expected to be completed in 2020. The project will add a travel lane on eastbound I-66 between the Dulles Access Road (Virginia State Route 267) and Fairfax Drive (Exit 71) in Ballston, will provide a new ramp-to-ramp direct access connection from eastbound I-66 to the West Falls Church Metro station at the Leesburg Pike (Virginia State Route 7) interchange and will provide a new bridge for the W&OD Trail over Lee Highway (U.S. Route 29). |
255_28 | VDOT completed in August 2018 a diverging diamond interchange in Haymarket at the interchange of I-66 with U.S. Route 15.
District of Columbia
In Washington D.C., I-66 was planned to extend east of its current terminus along the North Leg of the Inner Loop freeway. I-66 would have also met the eastern terminus of a planned Interstate 266 at US 29, and the western terminus of the South Leg Freeway (I-695) at US 50; I-266 would have been a parallel route to I-66, providing more direct access to the North Leg from points west, while I-695 would have been an inner-city connector between I-66 and I-95. |
255_29 | The final plans for the North Leg Freeway, as published in 1971, outlined a six-lane tunnel beneath K Street, between I-266/US 29 and New York Avenue, where the North Leg would emerge from the tunnel and join with the Center Leg Freeway (formerly I-95, now I-395); the two routes would run concurrently for three-fourths of a mile before reaching the Union Station interchange, where I-66 was planned to terminate.
Despite the plan to route the North Leg in a tunnel beneath K Street, the intense opposition to previous, scrapped alignments for the D.C. freeway network, which included previous alignments for the North Leg Freeway, led to the mass cancellation of all unbuilt D.C. freeways in 1977, resulting in the truncation of I-66 at US 29.
Exit list
All exits in the District of Columbia are unnumbered.
Auxiliary routes |
255_30 | Interstate 266 (I-266) was a proposed loop route of I-66 between Washington, D.C., and Arlington County, Virginia. District of Columbia officials proposed designating the route Interstate 66N, a move opposed by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. In Virginia, Interstate 266 would have split off from Interstate 66 just east of the present Spout Run Parkway exit. From there, it would have followed an expanded Spout Run Parkway, crossed the George Washington Memorial Parkway, and crossed the Potomac River across a new bridge that would have been called the Three Sisters Bridge. Upon entering the District of Columbia, it would have followed Canal Road and an expanded Whitehurst Freeway to rejoin Interstate 66 at K Street. Interstate 266 was canceled in 1972 in the face of community opposition during Washington's "freeway revolts".
References
External links |
255_31 | Transform 66 Outside the Beltway Project
HOV schedule in Northern Virginia, from Virginia Dept. of Transportation
Roads to the Future: Washington D.C. Interstates and Freeways
Steve Anderson's DCRoads.net: Interstate 66 (Virginia)
66
66
Transportation in Frederick County, Virginia
Transportation in Warren County, Virginia
Transportation in Fauquier County, Virginia
Transportation in Prince William County, Virginia
Transportation in Fairfax County, Virginia
Transportation in Arlington County, Virginia
66 |
256_0 | St Andrews Uniting Church is a heritage-listed church at 131 Creek Street (corner with Ann Street), Brisbane CBD, City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by George David Payne and built in 1905 by Alexander Lind & Son. Initially St Andrews Presbyterian Church, it became part of the Uniting Church following the merger of the Presbyterian, Methodist and Congregational Churches in 1977. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992.
History
St Andrews Church was constructed in 1905 for the local parish of the Presbyterian Church previously located on land now used as part of Brisbane Central Railway Station. The building was designed by innovative architect, George D. Payne. |
256_1 | The Presbyterian congregation who eventually built St Andrew's, constructed their first church at the corner of Wickham Terrace and Creek Street in 1863. This building, designed by Benjamin Backhouse, was known as the Union Presbyterian Church in commemoration of the amalgamation of the Church of Scotland, Free Church and United Presbyterian Church to form the Presbyterian Church of Queensland. The first minister appointed by the congregation was James Love, an Irishman who started preaching in the School of Arts building in Ann Street upon his arrival in Queensland. The congregation at the Union Presbyterian Church remained in their small sandstone church until 1887 when a new larger church designed by Willoughby Powell was constructed. This building was an ornate early English Gothic structure of brick, prominent in early photographs of Brisbane, which featured attached buttressing terminating in pinnacles above an open parapet and a large tower in the north-west corner. |
256_2 | Unfortunately, only ten years after the construction of their new church the congregation learnt of plans to quadruple the lines at Brisbane Central Railway Station, meaning the land on which the church was built was to be wholly or partially resumed. By 1900 firm plans were laid for the expansion of Central Station and negotiations began between the church and the Railway Commissioner over compensation. A deal was made for the payment of £20,000, paid to the Supreme Court and payable to the church on proof that the money was to be used for the acquiring of land and the construction of a substitute church. The former church was available rent free until October 1903 when plans for the railway station were to be realised. |
256_3 | A new site for the construction of their third church was found by the elders of the Presbyterian congregation on the corner of Ann and Creek Streets. The land was then occupied by a manufacturing plant and the land belonged to William Perry, who had leased the property from the original holder of the Deed off Grant, Henry Murray in 1875. In November 1884 Perry purchased the property and a quick succession of owners follows until the land was bought by Charles Elliott of Melbourne in December 1888. In July 1894 the Australian Mutual Provident Society became the owners of the property and it was they who appointed elders from the Presbyterian congregation as trustees of the site in 1901. After the Presbyterian Church Property Act of 1909 the property was vested in the Presbyterian Church of Queensland in February 1911. |
256_4 | Thus, after 1901 the former Wickham Terrace Presbyterian congregation became the owners of the land on the corner of Ann and Creek Streets and plans for the construction of a new building were made. The minutes of a meeting held on 8 July 1902 record the following resolutions; that a church be constructed on the site at a cost of between £8000 and £10,000 and that a competition be held for a design for the church open to Brisbane architects. The sum of £100 was to be expended in prize money, awarding the winner and three commended works. The competition stipulated that seating be provided for 500 people with provision for 200 additional attendants. Other facilities were to include an organ, choir stalls, a hall underneath the church, a minister's vestry, ladies parlour, choir room, toilets and a session room. The building was to be of brick or stone with pricing provided for both schemes. Further requirements were for three entrances from Ann Street, one to the administrative areas |
256_5 | and two to the body of the church and an entrance from Creek Street also giving access to the hall beneath the church. During October 1902 the results of the competition, which was judged by Brisbane architect, Claude William Chambers, were published in local newspapers and weekly journals and these nominated George D Payne of the Public Works Department as the winner of the competition with other local architect Walter Carey Voller coming second and architectural partnership, Addison and Corrie, being awarded third prize. The design was simple and severe and did not find favour with many, who had expected a Gothic-style church. However, it is regarded as one of the Southern Hemisphere's finest examples of the Neo-Romanesque style. |
256_6 | George D. Payne, the winning architect, was employed at the time within the Queensland Public Works Department, after moving to Brisbane in 1898 from New South Wales where he was in private practice after a period of employment with architectural partnership, Lowerish and Moorhouse. During his professional life in Sydney he entered many competitions and, despite the poor economic conditions, maintained a reasonably successful practice. Payne was a foundation member and inaugural president of the Sydney Architectural Association. In March 1898 Payne took a position as a temporary draftsman in the Public Works Department where he was involved in the design and construction of several outstanding public buildings in Queensland including the Rockhampton Customs House, the Townsville Customs House, detail work on first floor verandahs of the Warwick Post Office, and the East Brisbane State School. In February 1901 Payne was appointed assistant to Thomas Pye, the District Architect of the |
256_7 | Southern Division, but soon after, under notice of retrenchment, entered the competition for the design of St Andrew's Church. After he was announced winner in late 1902 he remained at the works department until December 1902 when he resigned to undertake construction supervision of his winning design. After construction of the church, Payne continued in private practice but failed to "attract work of a scale commensurate with his talent." It is therefore for the work at St Andrews on which his state and, indeed, national reputation as an innovative and highly skilled architect is based. |
256_8 | Construction on the church began in late 1902, after the tender of Messrs Alexander Lind and Son, assisted by foreman Alexander Anderson, was accepted, and continued until 27 August 1905 when it was opened for public worship, the first service being conducted by Rev. W. Sweyn Macqueen. Payne remained involved in the project throughout construction and it is perhaps for this reason that the finished building is characterised throughout by well integrated and sophisticated detailing. A lengthy report in a Presbyterian newspaper, The Messenger, commemorating the opening of the church comments on public criticism of the building, likening the criticism to that experienced by the opening of Westminster Cathedral (the Roman Catholic Cathedral located in central London, built 1895-1903). This was designed by John Francis Bentley, and constructed in polychrome banded brickwork in the manner of Byzantine or Early Christian churches, quite different from the usual Gothic tone of churches of the |
256_9 | time in that part of Europe. The article says, "there is no denying that it (St Andrew's) is unique as far as the Commonwealth is concerned. It has no prototype that we know", and continued on to describe the style of architecture as "a phase of early Christian or early Romanesque, that had its best expression in simplicity and severity of detail which relies for effect on the impressive dignity of the grouping of masses, forms, proportion, and which excludes all extravagant and unnecessary ornament." Those design features of St Andrews' which are of the Romanesque style, include the previously discussed massing of bold forms; the use of simple geometric shapes; semicircular arched openings; the half-domed interior to the chancel area; vaulting in the narthex and in the hall beneath the church; the general heaviness of many of these features rendered in face brick and the sparse use of Celtic and Norman ornamentation. |
256_10 | Design of churches during the Victorian period in Britain and her empire was dominated by a revival of the forms and inspiration of the Gothic movement. The Gothic church of the thirteenth and fourteenth century came to be a symbol of the power and glory of the church in a time when such characteristics were seriously threatened. Toward the end of the nineteenth century a new direction was taken, emphasising the influence of an earlier period of church building; early Christian ecclesiastical architecture, most obviously that of Byzantine and Romanesque periods. It is after manner that Payne conceived his design for St Andrew's. |
256_11 | Of the many fine features in the completed church the most remarkable are the semi-domed chancel, the organ and several panels of stained glass. The ceiling of the chancel was formed from a semi-dome of concrete with a span and, supposedly, marking the introduction of the groined vault into Queensland. The organ is a spectacular example of the work of Austral Organ Works, in a silky oak case designed by George Payne and built by Messrs JD Campbell and Son for £1440. The kinetic electric blower installed in the organ was apparently the first installed in Australia and relies on a rotary action, combining a series of duct fans to eliminate noise from operation. The prominence and importance attached to the organ reflects the significance of music in the Presbyterian church, particularly at the time of the construction of this building. Three stained glass windows in the narthex of the church are of particular note as the work of prominent Sydney stained glazier, FW Ashwin and Co. The |
256_12 | central panels represent the Burning Bush and flanking it are two figural windows, one of John Knox and the other of John Calvin, both of whom were associated with the early development of Presbyterianism. Ashwin and Co. also provided other, unspecified, leadlighting for the building and the total sum of their contract was £66. |
256_13 | The newly constructed church was much admired in Brisbane, and remains one of the most interesting ecclesiastical buildings in the state.
There was a universal feeling expressed by those present who had not previously seen the interior that they had not dreamed that it would be so magnificent, the austerity of the exterior scarcely preparing them for the fine effect of the chancel, with its shining brass and gleaming silver and burnished gold, the splendid sweep of the interior arches, the spacious auditorium unbroken by a single pillar, and the lofty roof, where sunbeams glinted and shadows came and went. |
256_14 | Very few changes have been made to St Andrew's Church since its construction was completed in 1905. As the fiftieth anniversary of the congregation approached in the 1914, small changes were made to improve the acoustics, ventilation and natural lighting of the building. These alterations included laying a ruberoid flooring, providing new window openings, and installing electric fans at the northern end of the auditorium. A large stained glass window was installed at the northern end of the auditorium, above the narthex, in 1921 in celebration of another anniversary.
Following the formation in 1977 of the Uniting Church in Australia, from the Presbyterian, Methodist and Congregational religions, St Andrew's Church is now a Uniting Church. More recent changes to the building include the conversion of the session house and ladies' parlour into contemporary office space. |
256_15 | Although the former Wickham Terrace church was sold for railway redevelopment to commence in 1903, the redevelopment work did not occur for many years. The church was used by the railways for storage until 1929, then rented as a gymnasium until 1942 and then finally occupied by the City Congregational Church until 1960, when the redevelopment for the railway station finally commenced.
Description
St Andrew's Church is a substantial brick and concrete building, occupying a prominent Brisbane CBD site on the corner of Creek and Ann Streets. The building is constructed in alignment with the footpath and covering most of the property allotment. |
256_16 | The church is a well-composed building, relying more for its character relying on the intrinsic characteristics of natural materials and the bold massing of simple forms than on ornamentation and decoration, which are often characteristic of ecclesiastical architecture. The architect, Payne, was much influenced by the late Victorian interest in Romanesque architectural styles, and this influence is most obvious at St Andrews' in the repeated use of the semicircular arched opening, vaulted and domed ceilings, sparse use of Celtic and Norman ornamentation and sophisticated face brickwork. |
256_17 | The building is asymmetrically arranged, with principal facades to both Creek and Ann Streets. It is a loadbearing brick structure with concrete foundation and basement substructure. Concrete detailing is found throughout the building, and includes door and window surrounds, tracery, stairs, roof detailing, internal vaulting and dome and internal corbelling. The building's ecclesiastical function is apparent in the traditional cruciform floor plan, with transepts extending from the north-south running nave, to the east and west, the western transept facing Ann Street. A rectangular wing, housing the early Session House, abuts the northern end of the building, also with principal entrance to Ann Street. The unglazed terracotta tiled roof of the church is gabled over the nave and transepts, with the Session House separately gabled with end to Ann Street. Complementing the forms of the steeply pitched gabled roofs, is a square planned tower at the principal corner of the site, and turned |
256_18 | through 45°, thus truncating the corner of the building and providing a suitable position for a corner entrance. The tower houses the principal semicircular arched doorway at ground level, accessed via several concrete steps, above which are several elongated rectangular and small circular openings with large semicircular arched openings near the cornice line. A simple concrete parapet, with ribbed detail and four simple corner pinnacles, surmounts the tower and partially conceals the pyramidal roof that has a concrete apex surmounted by a fine wrought iron finial. |
256_19 | The asymmetrically composed western facade of the building, addressing Ann Street, comprises the gabled ends of the western transept and, at the northern end, an entrance porch abutting the smaller gabled end of the Session House. Between the entrance porch and transept is a recessed wall, forming part of the wall of the nave of the church, which is externally buttressed with two tapered brick projections, extending to the sub floor level. The buttresses extend out from the building to be aligned with the transept face and have semicircular arched openings at their bases, forming a cloister-like external court adjacent to the hall in the basement of the church. The gabled transept end has three semicircular arched window openings, elongated and extending over much of the length of the gabled end. The entrance porch is square planned projection, with a simple roof and housing a semicircular arched doorway providing access to an internal porch leading to the narthex of the church. Above |
256_20 | the doorway are several concrete bands one of which is pebble dashed, above these are three small circular windows in a horizontal line with concrete surrounds. The gabled end of the session house is visually dominated by a projecting bay window or oriel, at first floor level. Below this at ground floor level is a semicircular arched doorway providing entrance to the session house and a tripartite window arrangement of small equally sized rectangular openings, glazed with stained and coloured glass. |
256_21 | The Creek Street facade of the building comprises the gabled southern end of the church that is symmetrically composed. Dominant on the face of the gable is a bowed projection, forming the external wall of the corridor at the rear of the chancel and following its rounded shape. The projecting rounded shape of this feature is reflected in the base and support of the large semicircular arched opening, through which it projects. On the face of the projection are a number of elongated semicircular arched windows, filled with stained and coloured glass panels, and beneath these are a number of decorative brick bands. The bowed base of the arched opening has a series of window openings, like slits, which provide natural lighting to the corridor within. The base of the archway is supported on a concrete corbel. Below this projection, at street level, are three semicircular arched door openings, fitted with collapsible steel gates, with ornamental ironwork in the head of the archway. Flanking |
256_22 | these openings are two arched openings fitted with four windows glazed with square multi-paned glass panels. |
256_23 | The principal entrance to the building is via a large semicircular arched doorway that is at the base of the tower, turned to run diagonally to the building. A double timber door from this entrance provides access to a small circular entrance vestibule from where two curved concrete stairs lead to the choir and vestry to the east and to the church auditorium on the western side. The vestibule, which has a concrete ceiling and floor, features lettering around the concrete cornice, "ENTER INTO HIS GATES WITH THANKSGIVING". This arrangement was not intended as the usual entrance for the congregation to the church, which was planned through two doorways from Ann Street providing access to an encaustic tiled porch with a concrete stair leading to the narthex, or outer chamber of the church auditorium. The narthex houses many fine architectural details including three stained glass panels in semicircular arched openings, supplied by FW Ashwin & Co. Three timber doors in the southern wall of |
256_24 | the narthex provide entry to the auditorium. |
256_25 | The church interior is in the traditional ecclesiastical cruciform plan, with shallow transepts formed at the southern end and expressed externally by the gabled projections to Ann Street and on the opposite side of the building. The body of the church is entirely open with a raked timber boarded ceiling, clad with ruberoid matting, and arched roof trusses which, like most of the joinery in the building, have been stained to a dark timber colour. The transepts, lower in height than the body of the church have large window openings, some of which have been fitted with stained glass panels. At the rear of the church, on the northern wall are three large tripartite window opening arrangements fitted with stained glass panels, featuring stories from the life of Christ. |
256_26 | Dominating the interior is a large and fine organ, found, in Presbyterian manner, raised in the chancel of the church and almost filling the entire cavity. A round headed chancel archway separates the apsidal chancel from the body of the church and provides the springing point for a semi-domical ceiling in the chancel area. The silky oak organ case is a fine piece of joinery designed by the architect of the church and featuring carved panels and gold lettering and very well integrated with the other altar furniture, choir seating and other joinery in the building. The chancel area comprises a number of tiers, with elders' and minister's seating on the lowest level, and choir seating, protected by a wrought iron balustrade, above. |
256_27 | At the rear of the chancel and expressed externally in the bowing projection in the arched opening on the Creek Street gabled section of the building, is a narrow corridor providing access to each side of the choir stalls and also between the principal stairs of the building. The narrowness and low lighting afforded through slits to Creek Street, make this corridor and associated spaces seem catacomb-like.
Characteristic of the church auditorium level of St Andrew's Church is the high quality and innovative and unusual design of the internal joinery. The stair joinery, doors, windows and their framing, along with church seating, wainscotting, benches, and other fittings are very well designed pieces, original to this building and contribute to the building's outstanding design. |
256_28 | Beneath the church auditorium and entered from an open entrance porch off Creek Street access to which is provided through three large semicircular arched doorway openings is the church hall. The interior of the hall is dominated by a double row of large concrete piers, and is flanked on the eastern side by an open courtyard along the Ann Street retaining wall boundary that is braced with a system of buttresses aligned with the internal columns in both auditoria.
Housed in a two storeyed section abutting the northern side of the building, the Session House, is the administrative core of the church, with the original session room and ladies' parlour. Though these have been recently renovated to provide some modern office accommodation, many of the early spaces have been retained.
Heritage listing
St Andrews Uniting Church was listed on the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992 having satisfied the following criteria. |
256_29 | The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history.
St Andrew's Uniting Church, formerly Presbyterian, is a large centrally located church that demonstrates the growth of Presbyterianism in Queensland, particularly in Brisbane where it was the home of one of the largest congregations for many years. The building, constructed in 1905 following expansion at Brisbane Central Railway Station, illustrates the growth of this area of the city.
The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage.
St Andrew's Church is a rare example of the Brisbane work of the renowned and fine architect, George D. Payne and has special associations with him. Though Payne practised in Brisbane for many years after construction of St Andrew's, none other of his buildings are of comparable prominence.
The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places. |
256_30 | The building is an excellent example of the turn of the century development in ecclesiastical architecture that saw the emergence of strong early Christian, Romanesque and Byzantine influences, where previously a Gothic language dominated. The building is one of the earliest ecclesiastical buildings in Brisbane that employs this Romanesque detail and form, influenced by trends in both England where Westminster Cathedral had been erected, and America where the influential architect, HH Richardson was practicing in a style now known as American Romanesque.
Other features contributing to the significance of the church are the early church seating, elder's seating and altar furniture and other early details and fittings. The building is good and characteristic example of a Presbyterian Church with an open auditorium, prominent organ and tiered chancel arrangement.
The place is important because of its aesthetic significance. |
256_31 | St Andrew's Church is a landmark in Brisbane, dominating the Ann and Creek Streets streetscape, employing strong architectural forms, including steeply pitched gables and a tower, on a prominent site. The building has many prominent features of aesthetic and historical importance including the stained glass windows, organ and the internal domed ceiling of the chancel.
The place is important in demonstrating a high degree of creative or technical achievement at a particular period.
St Andrew's is a well-designed building of outstanding architectural merit, it is innovative and well composed with a sophisticated and well-integrated level of original detail.
The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons.
The building has special associations with the Uniting and Presbyterian Church as a place of worship for about ninety years and as the home of a congregation that was established in the 1860s. |
256_32 | The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history.
St Andrew's Church is a rare example of the Brisbane work of the renowned and fine architect, George D. Payne and has special associations with him. Though Payne practised in Brisbane for many years after construction of St Andrew's, none other of his buildings are of comparable prominence.
References
Attribution
External links
Uniting churches in Brisbane
Presbyterian Church of Australia
1905 establishments in Australia
Churches completed in 1905
Queensland Heritage Register
Ann Street, Brisbane
Articles incorporating text from the Queensland Heritage Register
Creek Street, Brisbane |
257_0 | Palantir Technologies is a public American software company that specializes in big data analytics. Headquartered in Denver, Colorado, it was founded by Peter Thiel, Nathan Gettings, Joe Lonsdale, Stephen Cohen, and Alex Karp in 2003. The company's name is derived from The Lord of the Rings where the magical palantíri were "seeing-stones," described as indestructible balls of crystal used for communication and to see events in other parts of the world. |
257_1 | The company is known for three projects in particular: Palantir Gotham, Palantir Apollo, and Palantir Foundry. Palantir Gotham is used by counter-terrorism analysts at offices in the United States Intelligence Community (USIC) and United States Department of Defense. In the past, Gotham was used by fraud investigators at the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, a former US federal agency which operated from 2009 to 2015. Gotham was also used by cyber analysts at Information Warfare Monitor, a Canadian public-private venture which operated from 2003 to 2012. Palantir Apollo is the operating system for continuous delivery and deployment across all environments. Their SaaS is one of five offerings authorized for Mission Critical National Security Systems (IL5) by the U.S. Department of Defense. Palantir Foundry is used by corporate clients such as Morgan Stanley, Merck KGaA, Airbus, Wejo, Lilium, and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV. |
257_2 | Palantir's original clients were federal agencies of the USIC. It has since expanded its customer base to serve state and local governments, as well as private companies in the financial and healthcare industries.
History
2003–2008: Founding and early years
Though usually listed as having been founded in 2004, SEC filings state Palantir's official incorporation to be in May 2003 by Peter Thiel (co-founder of PayPal), who named the start-up after the "seeing stone" in Tolkien's legendarium. Thiel saw Palantir as a "mission-oriented company" which could apply software similar to PayPal's fraud recognition systems to "reduce terrorism while preserving civil liberties."
In 2004, Thiel bankrolled the creation of a prototype by PayPal engineer Nathan Gettings and Stanford University students Joe Lonsdale and Stephen Cohen. That same year, Thiel hired Alex Karp, a former colleague of his from Stanford Law School, as chief executive officer. |
257_3 | Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, the company initially struggled to find investors. According to Karp, Sequoia Capital chairman Michael Moritz doodled through an entire meeting, and a Kleiner Perkins executive lectured the founders about the inevitable failure of their company. The only early investments were $2 million from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's venture capital arm In-Q-Tel, and $30 million from Thiel himself and his venture capital firm, Founders Fund.
Palantir developed its technology by computer scientists and analysts from intelligence agencies over three years, through pilots facilitated by In-Q-Tel. The company stated computers alone using artificial intelligence could not defeat an adaptive adversary. Instead, Palantir proposed using human analysts to explore data from many sources, called intelligence augmentation. |
257_4 | 2009: GhostNet and the Shadow Network
In 2009 and 2010 respectively, Information Warfare Monitor used Palantir software to uncover the GhostNet and the Shadow Network. The GhostNet was a China-based cyber espionage network targeting 1,295 computers in 103 countries, including the Dalai Lama’s office, a NATO computer and various national embassies. The Shadow Network was also a China-based espionage operation that hacked into the Indian security and defense apparatus. Cyber spies stole documents related to Indian security and NATO troop activity in Afghanistan. |
257_5 | 2010–2012: Expansion
In April 2010, Palantir announced a partnership with Thomson Reuters to sell the Palantir Metropolis product as "QA Studio" (a quantitative analysis tool).
On June 18, 2010, Vice President Joe Biden and Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag held a press conference at the White House announcing the success of fighting fraud in the stimulus by the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board (RATB). Biden credited the success to the software, Palantir, being deployed by the federal government. He announced that the capability will be deployed at other government agencies, starting with Medicare and Medicaid.
Estimates were $250 million in revenues in 2011.
2013–2016: Additional funding |
257_6 | A document leaked to TechCrunch revealed that Palantir's clients as of 2013 included at least twelve groups within the U.S. government, including the CIA, the DHS, the NSA, the FBI, the CDC, the Marine Corps, the Air Force, the Special Operations Command, the United States Military Academy, the Joint Improvised-Threat Defeat Organization and Allies, the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. However, at the time, the United States Army continued to use its own data analysis tool. Also, according to TechCrunch, the U.S. spy agencies such as the CIA and FBI were linked for the first time with Palantir software, as their databases had previously been "siloed." |
257_7 | In September 2013, Palantir disclosed over $196 million in funding according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing. It was estimated that the company would likely close almost $1 billion in contracts in 2014. CEO Alex Karp announced in 2013 that the company would not be pursuing an IPO, as going public would make "running a company like ours very difficult." In December 2013, the company began a round of financing, raising around $450 million from private funders. This raised the company's value to $9 billion, according to Forbes, with the magazine further explaining that the valuation made Palantir "among Silicon Valley’s most valuable private technology companies." |
257_8 | In December 2014, Forbes reported that Palantir was looking to raise $400 million in an additional round of financing, after the company filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission the month before. The report was based on research by VC Experts. If completed, Forbes stated Palantir's funding could reach a total of $1.2 billion. As of December 2014, the company continued to have diverse private funders, Ken Langone and Stanley Druckenmiller, In-Q-Tel of the CIA, Tiger Global Management, and Founders Fund, which is a venture Firm operated by Peter Thiel, the chairman of Palantir. As of December 2014, Thiel was Palantir's largest shareholder. |
257_9 | The company was valued at $15 billion in November 2014. In June 2015, Buzzfeed reported the company was raising up to $500 million in new capital at a valuation of $20 billion. By December 2015, it had raised a further $880 million, while the company was still valued at $20 billion. In February 2016, Palantir bought Kimono Labs, a startup which makes it easy to collect information from public facing websites.
In August 2016, Palantir acquired data visualization startup Silk.
2020
Palantir is one of four large technology firms to start working with the NHS on supporting COVID-19 efforts through the provision of software from Palantir Foundry and by April 2020 several countries have used Palantir technology to track and contain the contagion. Palantir also developed Tiberius, a software for vaccine allocation used in the United States.
In December 2020, Palantir was awarded a $44.4 million contract by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, boosting its shares by about 21%. |
257_10 | Valuation
The company was valued at $9 billion in early 2014, with Forbes stating that the valuation made Palantir "among Silicon Valley's most valuable private technology companies". As of December 2014, Thiel was Palantir's largest shareholder. In January 2015, the company was valued at $15 billion after an undisclosed round of funding with $50 million in November 2014. This valuation rose to $20 billion in late 2015 as the company closed an $880 million round of funding. Palantir has never reported a profit. In 2018, Morgan Stanley valued the company at $6 billion.
Karp, Palantir's chief executive officer, announced in 2013 that the company would not pursue an IPO, as going public would make "running a company like ours very difficult". However, on October 18, 2018, the Wall Street Journal reported that Palantir was considering an IPO in the first half of 2019 following a $41 billion valuation. In July 2020, it was revealed the company had filed for an IPO. |
257_11 | It ultimately went public on the New York Stock Exchange through a direct public offering on September 30, 2020 under the ticker symbol "PLTR".
Investments
The company has invested over $400 million into nearly two dozen SPAC targets according to investment bank RBC Capital Markets, while bringing alongside those companies as customers.
Products
Palantir Gotham
Palantir Gotham is Palantir's government offering. It is an evolution of Palantir's longstanding work in the United States Intelligence Community. More recently, Palantir Gotham has been used as a predictive policing system, which has elicited some controversy. |
257_12 | Palantir Metropolis |
257_13 | Palantir Metropolis (formerly known as Palantir Finance) was software for data integration, information management and quantitative analytics. The software connects to commercial, proprietary and public data sets and discovers trends, relationships and anomalies, including predictive analytics. Aided by 120 "forward-deployed engineers" of Palantir during 2009, Peter Cavicchia III of JPMorgan used Metropolis to monitor employee communications and alert the insider threat team when an employee showed any signs of potential disgruntlement: the insider alert team would further scrutinize the employee and possibly conduct physical surveillance after hours with bank security personnel. The Metropolis team used emails, download activity, browser histories, and GPS locations from JPMorgan owned smartphones and their transcripts of digitally recorded phone conversations to search, aggregate, sort, and analyze this information for any specific keywords, phrases, and patterns of behavior. In |
257_14 | 2013, Cavicchia may have shared this information with Frank Bisignano who had become the CEO of First Data Corporation. |
257_15 | Palantir Apollo
Palantir Apollo is a continuous delivery system that manages and deploys Palantir Gotham and Foundry. Apollo was built out of the need for customers to use multiple public and private cloud platforms as part of their infrastructure. Apollo orchestrates updates to configurations and software in the Foundry and Gotham platforms using a micro-service architecture. This product allows Palantir to provide software as a service (SaaS) rather than to operate as a consulting company.
Palantir Foundry
Palantir Foundry was used by NHS England in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic in England to analyse the operation of the vaccination programme. A campaign was started against the company in June 2021 by Foxglove, a tech-justice nonprofit, because "Their background has generally been in contracts where people are harmed, not healed." Clive Lewis MP, supporting the campaign said Palantir had an "appalling track record." |
257_16 | Other
The company has been involved in a number of business and consumer products, designing in part or in whole. For example, in 2014, they premiered Insightics, which according to the Wall Street Journal "extracts customer spending and demographic information from merchants’ credit-card records." It was created in tandem with credit processing company First Data.
Customers
Corporate use
Palantir Metropolis is used by hedge funds, banks, and financial services firms.
Palantir Foundry clients include Merck KGaA, Airbus and Ferrari.
Palantir partner Information Warfare Monitor used Palantir software to uncover both the Ghostnet and the Shadow Network. |
257_17 | U.S. civil entities
Palantir's software is used by the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board to detect and investigate fraud and abuse in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Specifically, the Recovery Operations Center (ROC) used Palantir to integrate transactional data with open-source and private data sets that describe the entities receiving stimulus funds. Other clients as of 2019 included Polaris Project, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the National Institutes of Health, Team Rubicon, and the United Nations World Food Programme.
In October 2020, Palantir began helping the federal government set up a system that will track the manufacture, distribution and administration of COVID-19 vaccines across the country. |
257_18 | U.S. military, intelligence, and police
Palantir Gotham is used by counter-terrorism analysts at offices in the United States Intelligence Community and United States Department of Defense, fraud investigators at the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, and cyber analysts at Information Warfare Monitor (responsible for the GhostNet and the Shadow Network investigation).
Other clients as of 2013 included DHS, NSA, FBI, CDC, the Marine Corps, the Air Force, Special Operations Command, West Point, the Joint IED Defeat Organization and Allies. However, at the time the United States Army continued to use its own data analysis tool. Also, according to TechCrunch, "The U.S. spy agencies also employed Palantir to connect databases across departments. Before this, most of the databases used by the CIA and FBI were siloed, forcing users to search each database individually. Now everything is linked together using Palantir." |
257_19 | U.S. military intelligence used the Palantir product to improve their ability to predict locations of improvised explosive devices in its war in Afghanistan. A small number of practitioners reported it to be more useful than the United States Army's program of record, the Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS-A). California Congressman Duncan D. Hunter complained of United States Department of Defense obstacles to its wider use in 2012.
Palantir has also been reported to be working with various U.S. police departments, for example accepting a contract in 2013 to help the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center build a controversial license plates database for California. In 2012 New Orleans Police Department partnered with Palantir to create a predictive policing program. |
257_20 | In 2014, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) awarded Palantir a $41 million contract to build and maintain a new intelligence system called Investigative Case Management (ICM) to track personal and criminal records of legal and illegal immigrants. This application has originally been conceived by ICE's office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), allowing its users access to intelligence platforms maintained by other federal and private law enforcement entities. The system reached its "final operation capacity" under the Trump administration in September 2017.
Palantir took over the Pentagon's Project Maven contract in 2019 after Google decided not to continue developing AI unmanned drones used for bombings and intelligence.
International Atomic Energy Agency
Palantir was used by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to verify if Iran was in compliance with the 2015 agreement. |
257_21 | Europe
The firm has contracts relating to patient data from the British National Health Service. It was awarded an emergency, no-competition contract to mine COVID-19 patient data in 2019. In 2020 this was valued at more than £23.5 million and was extended for two more years. The firm was encouraged by Liam Fox "to expand their software business" in Britain.
The Danish POL-INTEL predictive policing project has been operational since 2017 and is based on the Gotham system. According to the AP the Danish system "uses a mapping system to build a so-called heat map identifying areas with higher crime rates." The Gotham system has also been used by German state police in Hesse and Europol. |
257_22 | The Norwegian Customs is using Palantir Gotham to screen passengers and vehicles for control. Known inputs are prefiled freight documents, passenger lists, the national Currency Exchange database (tracks all cross-border currency exchanges), the Norwegian Welfare Administrations employer- and employee-registry, the Norwegian stock holder registry and 30 public databases from InfoTorg. InfoTorg provides access to more than 30 databases, including the Norwegian National Citizen registry, European Business Register, the Norwegian DMV vehicle registry, various credit databases etc. These databases are supplemented by the Norwegian Customs Departments own intelligence reports, including results of previous controls. The system is also augmented by data from public sources such as social media.
Partnerships and contracts |
257_23 | International Business Machines
On February 8, 2021, Palantir and IBM announced a new partnership that would use IBM's hybrid cloud data platform alongside Palantir's operations platform for building applications. The product, Palantir for IBM Cloud Pak for Data, is expected to simplify the process of building and deploying AI-integrated applications with IBM Watson. It will help businesses/users interpret and use large datasets without needing a strong technical background. Palantir for IBM Cloud Pak for Data will be available for general use in March 2021.
Amazon (AWS)
On March 5, 2021, Palantir announced its partnership with Amazon AWS. Palantir's ERP Suite is now optimized to run on Amazon Web Services. One of the first notable successes of the ERP suite was with BP, which was able to save about $50 million in working capital within two weeks of onboarding the system. |
257_24 | Babylon Health
Palantir took a stake in Babylon Health in June 2021. Ali Parsa told the Financial Times that "nobody" has brought some of the tech that Palantir owns "into the realm of biology and health care."
Controversies
Algorithm development
I2 Inc sued Palantir in Federal Court alleging fraud, conspiracy, and copyright infringement over Palantir's algorithm. Shyam Sankar, Palantir's director of business development, used a private eye company as the cutout for obtaining I2's code. I2 settled out of court for $10 million in 2011. |
257_25 | WikiLeaks proposals (2010)
In 2010, Hunton & Williams LLP allegedly asked Berico Technologies, Palantir, and HBGary Federal to draft a response plan to "the WikiLeaks Threat." In early 2011 Anonymous publicly released HBGary-internal documents, including the plan. The plan proposed that Palantir software would "serve as the foundation for all the data collection, integration, analysis, and production efforts." The plan also included slides, allegedly authored by HBGary CEO Aaron Barr, which suggested "[spreading] disinformation" and "disrupting" Glenn Greenwald’s support for WikiLeaks.
Palantir CEO Karp ended all ties to HBGary and issued a statement apologizing to "progressive organizations… and Greenwald … for any involvement that we may have had in these matters." Palantir placed an employee on leave pending a review by a third-party law firm. The employee was later reinstated. |
257_26 | Racial discrimination lawsuit (2016)
On September 26, 2016, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs of the U.S. Department of Labor filed a lawsuit against Palantir alleging that the company discriminated against Asian job applicants on the basis of their race. According to the lawsuit, the company "routinely eliminated" Asian applicants during the hiring process, even when they were "as qualified as white applicants" for the same jobs. Palantir settled the suit in April 2017 for $1.7 million while not admitting wrongdoing. |
257_27 | British Parliament inquiry (2018)
During questioning in front of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, Christopher Wylie, the former research director of Cambridge Analytica, said that several meetings had taken place between Palantir and Cambridge Analytica, and that Alexander Nix, the chief executive of SCL, had facilitated their use of Aleksandr Kogan's data which had been obtained from his app "thisisyourdigitallife" by mining personal surveys. Kogan later established Global Science Research to share the data with Cambridge Analytica and others. Wylie confirmed that both employees from Cambridge Analytica and Palantir used Kogan's Global Science Research data together in the same offices. |
257_28 | ICE Partnership (since 2014)
Palantir has come under criticism due to its partnership developing software for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Palantir has responded that its software is not used to facilitate deportations. In a statement provided to the New York Times, the firm implied that because its contract was with HSI, a division of ICE focused on investigating criminal activities, it played no role in deportations. However, documents obtained by The Intercept show that this is not the case. According to these documents, Palantir's ICM software is considered 'mission critical' to ICE. Other groups critical of Palantir include the Brennan Center for Justice, National Immigration Project, the Immigrant Defense Project, the Tech Workers Coalition and Mijente. In one internal ICE report Mijente acquired, it was revealed that Palantir's software was critical in an operation to arrest the parents of undocumented migrant children. |
257_29 | On September 28, 2020, Amnesty International released a report criticizing Palantir failure to conduct human rights due diligence around its contracts with ICE. Concerns around Palantir's rights record were being scrutinized for contributing to human rights violations of asylum-seekers and migrants.
"HHS Protect Now" and privacy concerns (since 2020)
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has prompted tech companies to respond to growing demand for citizen information from governments in order to conduct contact tracing and to analyze patient data. Consequently, data collection companies, such as Palantir, have been contracted to partake in pandemic data collection practices. Palantir's participation in "HHS Protect Now", a program launched by the United States Department of Health and Human Services to track the spread of the coronavirus, has attracted criticism from American lawmakers. |
257_30 | Palantir's participation in COVID-19 response projects re-ignited debates over its controversial involvement in tracking undocumented immigrants, especially its alleged effects on digital inequality and potential restrictions on online freedoms. Critics allege that confidential data acquired by HHS could be exploited by other federal agencies in unregulated and potentially harmful ways. Alternative proposals request greater transparency in the process to determine whether any of the data aggregated would be shared with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to single out undocumented immigrants.
Project Maven (since 2018)
After Google had issues with employees walking out concerning the new contract in partnership with the Pentagon, Project Maven, a secret artificial intelligence program aimed at the unmanned operation of aerial vehicles, was taken up by Palantir. Critics warn that the technology could lead to autonomous weapons that decide who to strike without human input. |
257_31 | See also
Government by algorithm
References
External links
2003 establishments in California
Analytics companies
Big data companies
Business software companies
Companies based in Denver
American companies established in 2003
Data brokers
Criminal investigation
Software companies based in Colorado
Software companies of the United States
Government by algorithm
Software companies established in 2003
Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange
Direct stock offerings |
258_0 | Rammellzee (stylized RAMM:ΣLL:ZΣΣ, pronounced "Ram: Ell: Zee"; December 15, 1960 – June 28, 2010) was a visual artist, gothic futurist "graffiti writer", painter, performance artist, art theoretician, sculptor and a hip hop musician from New York City, who has been cited as "instrumental in introducing elements of the avant-garde into hip-hop culture". Since 2021, Rammellzee's work is exclusively represented by Jeffrey Deitch.
Early life
Rammellzee was born on December 15, 1960 in Far Rockaway, Queens to an African-American mother and Italian father who worked as a transit detective. He grew up in the Carlton Manor Projects near the Far Rockaway–Mott Avenue A train terminal station. His graffiti work started to show up in the 1970s on New York City's subway cars and stations, specifically on the A-train since it was his local train. |
258_1 | Rammellzee studied dentistry at the Clara Barton High School for Health Professions, was a model for Wilhelmina (under the name Mcrammellzee), and briefly studied jewelry design at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT).
Career
Discovered by a larger audience through the 1982 cult movie Wild Style by Charlie Ahearn, Rammellzee's earlier fame in graffiti circles was established when he painted New York subway trains with DONDI, OU3, and Ink 76, and doctor Revolt under his aliases Hyte, Hytestyr, EG (Evolution Griller the Master Killer), Sharissk Boo, Razz, and Maestro on the A, CC, 2 and 5 subway lines. Rammellzee was an occasional member of the Death Comet Crew, with Stuart Argabright, Michael Diekmann and Shinichi Shimokawa. He also formed the crew Tag Master Killers, consisting of A-One, Delta2, Kool Koor and Toxic. |
258_2 | Rammellzee became a friend and collaborator of artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. In 1982, Rammellzee and Toxic accompanied Basquiat to Los Angeles while he prepared for his show at the Gagosian Gallery. They called themselves the Hollywood Africans as a social and political statement to counter the stereotypical portrayals of African Americans in Hollywood. The trio are depicted in Basquiat's paintings Hollywood Africans in front of the Chinese Theater with Footprints of Movie Stars (1983) and Hollywood Africans (1983). |
258_3 | Rammellzee was an original hip hop artist who introduced specific vocal styles which date back to the early 1980s. His 12-inch single "Beat Bop," in collaboration with rapper K-Rob and with cover art by Basquiat, is considered by some to be the most valuable (meaning collectible) hip-hop record of all time. "Beat Bop" was also featured in the film Style Wars. Rammellzee makes a cameo appearance near the end of Jim Jarmusch's 1984 film Stranger Than Paradise. Rammellzee's influence can be heard in artists such as Beastie Boys and Cypress Hill. In 1988, Rammellzee and his band Gettovetts recorded the album Missionaries Moving, with producer Bill Laswell, a frequent collaborator. Laswell also paired Rammellzee with writer William Burroughs on the 1989 album, Seven Souls, and featured him on several albums recorded by his revolving super-group, Praxis. |
258_4 | He also wrote an opera "The Requiem of Gothic Futurism" in 1985, "offered to send the U.S. military some of the intelligence he had gathered for national defense," and "tried to promote his ideas by producing a comic book and a board game."
Rammellzee was the first artist to collaborate with the streetwear brand Supreme, making hand-painted trucker hats at their first store in 1994.
In 2003, Rammellzee released his debut album, This Is What You Made Me, and performed at the Knitting Factory in New York with the newly reformed Death Comet Crew. Subsequently, Troubleman Unlimited re-released recordings made by DCC between 1982 and 1984. Their single for Exterior St was featured on the compilation Anti-NY with Ike Yard, Sexual Harassment, and Vivien Goldman, among others. In 2004, Rammellzee released his second album Bi-Conicals of the Rammellzee, produced by Gamma Records. |
258_5 | Gothic Futurism
Rammellzee's graffiti and art work are based on his theory of Gothic Futurism, which describes the battle between letters and their symbolic warfare against any standardizations enforced by the rules of the alphabet. His treatise, Ionic treatise Gothic Futurism assassin knowledges of the remanipulated square point's one to 720° to 1440°, details an anarchic plan by which to revise the role and deployment of language in society.Rammellzee performed in self-designed masks and costumes of different characters which represented the "mathematical equation" that is Rammellzee. On the basis of his Gothic Futurism approach, he described his artistic work as the logical extension into a new phase which he calls Ikonoklast Panzerism. This artistic work has been shown in art galleries throughout the US and Europe. His Letter Racers, and other Noise includes artistic works by individuals mostly identified with their musical contributions. |
258_6 | Afrofuturism
Rammellzee's work is considered to contribute to the canon of Afrofuturism, primarily through his repeated use of language as a technology. One of the central themes of Afrofuturist content is the use of language as a technology to transcend the Digital Divide. Conversely, Rammellzee had stated that "there is no such thing as Afro Futurism" and considered his work to be more part of a larger European monastic tradition than any part of an Afrofuturist tradition.
The theory of Gothic Futurism attempts to deconstruct the English language as it is currently conceived. The battle between letters seen in the Ionic treatise deploys language as a technology to fight the oppressive nature of the alphabet. The introduction of a new mythology in the treatise suggests that Rammellzee's language can serve as a force of liberation, thereby lessening the Digital Divide. |
258_7 | In addition, Rammellzee's Letter Racers are intended to pit each individual letter in galactic battles against each other, symbolically challenging the accepted standards and functionality of the 26-letter alphabet.
Rammellzee's description of the Letter Racers is as follows:
"Humans...in the 14th Century the monks ornamented and illustrated the
manuscripts of letters. In the 21st and 22nd century the letters of the alphabet
through competition are now armamented for letter racing and galactic battles. This was made possible by a secret equation known as THE RAMM:ELL:ZEE."
Rammellzee is celebrated in Big Audio Dynamite's song, 'Come On Every Beat Box'.
In 2010 Buckethead released a tribute song called, 'Rammellzee: Hero of the Abyss'. |
258_8 | Personal life
Rammellzee was married to Carmela Zagari Rammellzee. He died in New York City on June 28, 2010, at the age of 49, having suffered from the exposure to glue, paint fumes, resin and other toxins through his work and from liver problems. The official cause of death was listed as heart disease.
Name
He legally changed his name to Rammellzee in 1979 and friends who knew his birth name were unwilling to reveal it, in accordance with his wishes. He sometimes went by the shortened name of "Ramm". He has stated that his name is derived from RAM plus M for Magnitude, Sigma (Σ) the first summation operator, first L – longitude, second L – latitude, Z – z-bar, Σ, Σ – summation. He has credited Jamel-Z, a mentor from the Nation of Gods and Earths he met in 1977, with inspiration for his name. |
258_9 | Battle Station
Rammellzee's live/work loft studio space on 46 Laight Street in the TriBeCa neighborhood, which he shared with his wife Carmela, was named Battlestation. It was a popular place in the 1980s and 1990s for artists to visit, because Rammellzee's artwork and costumes created a unique atmosphere. After 9/11, the building was sold in order to build luxury condos and this forced Rammellzzee and Carmela to move to a smaller place in Battery Park City, and relocate his 20 years worth of artwork into a storage unit. Some of this stored work was included in the 2011 art exhibition, Art in the Streets at Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles. In May 2018, Red Bull Arts New York opened its exhibition RAMMΣLLZΣΣ: Racing for Thunder, billed in its press release as "the largest survey to date of one of the most influential yet overlooked artists of the 20th century." |
258_10 | Exhibitions
2021 - Writing the Future: Basquiat and the Hip-Hop Generation - Museum of Fine Arts, Boston - Group
2018 - RAMMΣLLZΣΣ: A Roll of Dice - Lazinc Gallery - London - England - Solo
2018 - Rammellzee - Racing for Thunder - Red Bull Arts - New-York - United States - Solo
2018 - Le musée du street Art et du Graffiti - L'Aérosol - Maquis-art Hall of Fame - Paris - Group
2016 - La Velocità delle immagini (Collection Speerstra) - Institut Suisse de Rome - Italy
2016 - Graffiti Art - Tableau de légende (Collection Gallizia) - Institut culturel Bernard Magrez - Bordeaux - France - Group
2016 - Pressionnism, graffiti masterpieces on canvas (Collection Gallizia) - Fort Canning Museum - Singapour - France - Group
2015 - Pressionnisme, de Bando à Basquiat (Collection Gallizia) - Pinacothèque de Paris - France - Group
2014 - City as Canvas: Graffiti Art (Collection Martin Wong) - Museum of the City of New York - NY - United States - Group |
258_11 | 2013 - The Shadows Took Shape - The Studio Museum in Harlem - New York City -NY - United States - Group
2013 - Urban Art Biennale 2013 - Urban Art Biennale - Völklingen - Germany - Group
2013 - Graffiti, Thanks a Lot - Fun Gallery (Curateur Patti Astor) - New-York - United States - Group
2013 - Tekens aan de Wand: Ferenc Gögös/Graffiti Art - Museum Tongerlohuys - Roosendaal - Netherlands - Group
2013 - White Petals Surround Your Yellow Heart - Institute of Contemporary Art - University of Pennsylvania - Philadelphia - United States - Group
2013 - Last of the Hollywood Africans: Toxic - Londonewcastle Project Space - London - England - Group
2013 - Abstract Mash-Up II: A Group Exhibition - Crown Point Press Gallery - San Francisco - United States - Group
2012 - Radical Presence: Black Performance In Contemporary Art - Contemporary Arts Museum Houston - Houston - United States - Group |
258_12 | 2012 - God Save the Queen: Punk in the Netherlands 1977-1984 - Centraal Museum - Utrecht - Netherlands - Group
2012 - Brucennial 2012 - Harder. Betterer. Fasterer - United States - Group
2012 - Strongerer - Brucennial - New York City - United States - Group
2012 - Letter Racers - The Museum of Modern Art - NY - United States - Solo
2012 - Letter Racers - The Suzanne Geiss Company - NY - United States - Solo
2012 - The Rammellzee Galaxseum - Children's Museum of Art - New York - United States - Solo
2011 - Perfect Man II - White Columns - New York City - NY - United States - Group
2011 - Graffiti - New York 80's - Galerie Jérôme de Noirmont - Paris - France - Group
2012 - Speerstra Fondation (Collection Speerstra) - Apples - Switzerland - Group
2012 - Art in the Streets - The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA - Los Angeles - CA - Group - solo
2011 - L'Art du Graffiti : 40 ans de Pressionnisme (Curateur A.D. Gallizia) - Grimaldi Forum - Monaco - France - Group & solo |
258_13 | 2011 - The Aerosol Experience - Zieglerzwei - Zurich - Switzerland - Group
2011 - The Rudolf and Ute Scharpff Collection - Kunstmuseum Stuttgart - Germany - Solo
2010 - Street and Studio - Von Basquiat bis Séripop - Kunsthalle Wien (Museumsquartier) - Vienna - Austria - Group
2010 - Un musée à ciel ouvert (Collections Gallizia-Emerige) - Bâche Wagram - Paris - France - Group
2010 - Printin - The Museum of Modern Art - NY - United States - Group
2010 - Rammellzee: The Equation - Suzanne Geiss's Gallery - New York - United States - Solo
2009 - Gothic Futurism - Galerie Renée Ziegler - Zurich - Switzerland - Solo
2009 - Subcultural Capital - Anonymous Gallery - New York City - NY - United States - Group
2009—The New Yorkers - V1 Gallery - Copenhagen - Denmark - Group
2009 - Ramm:Ell:Zee - Galerie Ziegler SA - Zurich - Switzerland - Solo
2009 - Tag au Grand Palais (Collections Gallizia) - Grand Palais - Paris - France - Group |
258_14 | 2007 - Futuro del Futurismo - Gamec -Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo - Italy - Group
2007 - Graffiti Stories (Collection Speerstra) - Abbaye d'Auberive et Musée Paul Valéry, Sète - France - Group
2007 -L'art modeste sous les bombes (Collection Speerstra) - Musee International des Arts Modestes - Sete - France - Group
2006 - Music is a Better Noise - MoMA PS1, New York City - NY - Group
2006 - Sound Zero - Kunst Meran - Meran - Italy - Group
2005 - Bi-Conicals of Rammellzee Tour - Venice Biennale - Italy - Solo
2004 - Smile away the parties and champagne - Zeen keuze uit de collectie - Gemeentemuseum Helmond - Boscotondohal, Helmond - Netherlands - Group
2002 - Americas Remixed - Careof – Fabbrica del Vapore - Milan - Italy - Group
2002 -Cowboys en kroegtijgers - Gemeentemuseum Helmond - Boscotondohal - Helmond - Netherlands - Group
2002 - Americas - Fabbrica del Vapore - Milan - Italy - Group |
258_15 | 2001 - Oostduitse meisjes en andere stukken - Gemeentemuseum Helmond - Boscotondohal - Helmond - Netherlands - Group
1998 - Smile away the parties and champagne - Gemeentemuseum Helmond - Boscotondohal, Helmond - Netherlands - Group
1994 - Rammellzee vs Gen U One (Gen Atem) - Exercises in Self Presentation - Eigen + Art - New York City - United States - Group
1992 - Coming from the Subway (Collection Speerstra) - Groninger Museum - Netherlands - Group
1991 - American Graffiti: A Survey - Liverpool Gallery - Brussels - Group
1991 - Graffiti Art : Artistes américains et français 1981/1991 (Collection Speerstra) - Musée des monuments Français Paris - Group
1990 - Rammellzee - Galerie B5/Speerstra Gallery - Monaco - France - Solo
1989 - Hip Hop 'til You Drop - Whitney Museum of American Art - New York - United States - Group
1988 - Comic Iconoclasm - Cornerhouse - Manchester - England - Group
1987 - The Equation - Lidia Carrieri Gallery - Rome - Italy - Solo |
258_16 | 1986 - Retrospective (Collection Speerstra) - Gemeente museum - Helmond - Netherlands - Group
1985 - 18° Bienal de Sao Paulo - Bienal de Sao Paulo - São Paulo - Brasil - Group
1985 - Ikonoklast Panzerim - Galerie Renée Ziegler - Zurich - Switzerland - Group
1985 - Between Science and Fiction - Bienal de Sao Paulo - Brasil - Group
1984 - Rapid Enamel The Art of Graffiti - The Renaissance Society at The University of Chicago - Group
1984 - Ein anderes klima - a different climate (II) - Kunsthalle Düsseldorf - Dusseldorf - Germany - Group
1984 - Graffiti - Groninger Museum - Groningen - Netherlands - Group
1984 - New York Graffiti (Collection Speerstra) - Louisiana Museum - Humlebaek - Denmark - Group
1984 - Artists from New-York in Monte-Carlo - Speerstra Gallery - Monaco - France - Group
1983 - Post-Graffiti - Sydney Janis Gallery - New-York - United States - Group
1983 - Graffiti, Thanks a Lot - Fun Gallery (Patti Astor) -Group |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.