TEST 10

Andy Warhol was the most popular figure in the pop art movement that came up in the 1950s in the United States and Great Britain. During his career he produced paintings, films, commercials, print ads and other works of art.

Andy Warhol’s parents came to America from Czechoslovakia at the beginning of the 20th century. As a boy Andy liked to draw and cut up pictures. The family lived in Pittsburgh, where Warhol’s father worked in a coal mine.

While in high school Warhol took art classes and drew sketches at the Carnegie Museum. He liked to go to the movies and started collecting fan articles of famous movies and stars. These objects appeared later on in Warhol’s works.

Warhol studied art in Pittsburgh and after moving to New York in 1949 he began work as an illustrator for magazines such as the New Yorker or Vogue. During this time he started using a special technique to draw images for ads. Andy Warhol became unsatisfied with this job and wanted to have his pictures shown in art galleries.

During the 1960s Andy Warhol concentrated on painting realistic pictures of everyday items. This style became known as pop art. Among his most famous paintings were comic strips, images of Marylyn Monroe, Muhammad Ali, Coca Cola bottles and the electric chair. His probably best known painting was the famous Campbell soup can. In his drawings Warhol simplified objects and portraits and painted them in many different colors.

The center of Warhol’s life was his art studio, called the Factory. There he met many other famous artists and celebrities. The Factory was also used as a film studio in which Andy Warhol produced many of his famous underground films. They usually had no special plot but were very long. In one of them he shows a man sleeping for five hours.

TEST 11

Houses are buildings that people can live, eat and sleep in. They protect you from dangers and bad weather. Most houses show the lifestyles, traditions and cultures of the people who live in them. Homes and houses have different shapes and sizes . They are built of different materials that depending on the climate of the area you live in.

Building materials

Long ago, people built homes with whatever building materials that they had. In Africa and some islands of the South Pacific they used grass or leaves that grew nearby. In the south-western part of the United States the Pueblo Indians used sun-dried bricks to build their houses.

Even though today you can transport materials all over the world, it is still easier and cheaper to use the materials that are at hand . There are four basic kinds of material that are used today.

In the northern part of North America and in northern Europe wood has been the main building material for many centuries . Early settlers in America built log cabins and in Scandinavia people designed wooden houses with large beams and balconies.

Brick is among the oldest and most popular building material . It lasts long and is easy to get. Brick is often used to build row houses . Early Dutch settlers brought bricks across the Atlantic to build their first houses.

Stone is the longest lasting of all building materials. Weather cannot destroy it so much and insects and animals cannot bore into it as they can into wood. Stone has been used for many centuries because it cannot be destroyed by fire. It has been used for all sorts of houses, from palaces to farmers' cottages

In modern buildings we use concrete instead of stone and brick. It is cheaper and can be produced almost everywhere. Concrete is a mixture of sand , broken stones, water and other materials. Cement is added to hold it together. Steel rods are often put into the concrete , to hold it together when buildings get higher.

Building a house

Before you actually build a house there a lot of things you must do first. You must have a piece of land on which your house can be built, then you should ask an architect or builder to find out if there are any restrictions or limitations on building in the area. A construction drawing of the house shows the size, order of the rooms, where doors and windows are and other details . Then you usually need a building permit to start building your house.

The foundation supports your house. Construction workers start digging holes for the footings , which support the walls of the house. They are made by pouring concrete into forms that reach down below the frost line so that the house cannot move when it freezes in winter. The area that is below the ground is called the basement or cellar. Many basements have extra rooms that are used for the house’s heating or for storage . Not all houses have basements, those in wet regions are often put on stilts .

The frame is the skeleton around which the rest of the house is built. Workers put beams into the foundation that support the outside walls. Slabs are the horizontal parts of the frame that separate the floors . When the frame is finished the walls are raised .

The roof protects the house from rain and sun. Some roofs are flat others are slanted to lead rain and snow down. They are built of different materials, depending on the climate and amount of rainfall.

Interior construction

When the outside of the house is finished you must start working on the interior . Windows, doors have to be built into the frame. Wires must be laid for electricity and power . Plumbers install the pipes through which water flows through. A new house has to be insulated in order to reduce heating costs and to save money. Most houses have central heating system. A furnace or boiler, mostly in the basement, warms up the water which then leads through pipes through the whole house. Cold water returns through the pipes and into the furnace where it is heated up again. More and more houses install air conditioning to cool down in the summer months. Finally , the walls are painted and the rooms decorated .

Culture and Lifestyle

Home styles around the world are different because of culture and tradition. Western-style houses and buildings are found all over the world. With their simple design they are slowly replacing traditional houses in the Middle East and Asia.

In big cities where there is not enough space people often live in apartments. They appear in all kinds of sizes and forms - from one-room apartments to apartments with balconies or terraces or even penthouses. Town or row houses are often found in cities. They have separate street entrances but often share the same walls.

Many suburban residents live in single-family houses with their own yards and gardens. Sometimes they are built in groups that are owned and sold by a company.. In rural areas farmhouses usually stand alone, surrounded by fields, barns and huts.

In some parts of the world people don’t always live in the same place. They move their homes constantly . The Plains Indians in America took their tepees with them when they were following buffalo herds. In Central Asia nomads live in tents which they carry with them . In other counties people live in houseboats on rivers. Mobile homes are becoming more and more popular , especially in America . They can be loaded onto a truck and towed from one place to another.

TEST 12

Skyscrapers are the world’s tallest buildings. They first appeared in New York and Chicago at the end of the 19th century. Skyscrapers are often like small cities. They offer space for offices, apartments, shops, hotels, restaurants and other services. Tens of thousands of people live and work there. 

Building Skyscrapers

Skyscrapers have two parts: the foundation is the part below the ground and the superstructure is the part above the ground. Both sections hold the weight of the building.

A skyscraper needs careful planning before it can be built. First a big hole a few stories deep is dug into the earth. Sometimes this foundation reaches into solid rock. Then steel and concrete beams and columns are placed into it. They carry the weight of the superstructure.

When the foundation is finished cranes are used to raise a steel frame up into the sky. The pieces of this frame are bolted together. As it moves upward other workers lay floors and hang in the outside walls. The complete structure of the skyscraper must be finished before the inside systems can be installed.

A skyscraper must also be able to hold off strong winds. Modern buildings are able to swing a few metres in each direction, like a tree, without damaging the structure. Sometimes a steel core rises upwards from the inside of the building to give it better support.

Service areas

Corridors , staircases, elevators, heating systems, air conditioning and electrical systems belong to the most important inner elements of a skyscraper. Although the outside structure can be completed in a few weeks it may take years to finish the whole building.

Pumps bring clean water to all parts of the skyscraper, the drainage system carries away water and waste materials.

Air conditioning and heating systems control the temperature in the building the whole year round. Electrical systems provide power and communication throughout the building and wires carry electricity to each floor. Elevators are the most important systems of a skyscraper. They carry people up and down at speeds of up to 500 metres per minute.

History of skyscrapers

Two discoveries in the middle of the 1800s made it possible to build modern skyscrapers. Before the Industrial Revolution brick and stone walls carried the weight of buildings. Because each floor was very heavy it was impossible to build very high houses. In the middle of the 19th century steel became an important building material. This metal was strong and light. Architects could now construct a steel skeleton to support very tall buildings. Chicago’s Home Insurance Company Building was ten stories tall and the first skyscraper to use such a steel construction.

Skyscrapers would have been useless if people had to walk up and down many flights of stairs. In 1853 an elevator safe enough to carry passengers was invented by Elisha Graves Otis.

During the early 20th century the construction of tall buildings became very popular in big cities. Cities grew bigger as more and more people could live and work there. Tall buildings were also seen as a symbol of power and greatness. Thus, major cities, especially in America, fought for the tallest buildings in the world. For four decades the Empire State Building in New York was the world’s highest structure. The 381 metre high landmark has 102 stories and was completed in 1932. The World Trade Centre, finished in 1973, became a symbol the city’s economic strength. Even though many New Yorkers did not like them at the beginning, they got used to the “Twin Towers” in the middle of Manhattan. The destruction of the World Trade Centre in the terrorist attacks of 2001 hit the heart of the city.

Today the world’s tallest buildings no longer stand in America. Other countries, mainly in the growing regions of Asia, have entered the prestigious race for the tallest structures in the world. The 452 metre high Petronas Towers in Malaysia, completed in 1996, became the first skyscraper outside the US to climb the top of the list. The Taipei 101, at a height of 508 metres, is currently the tallest completed building in the world, but the Burj Dubai which is expected to be completed in 2008 or 2009 will be over 700 metres high.

As the race for the world’s tallest building continues most experts have different opinions on how tall skyscrapers can become. Some say building a 1000-metre high structure would be no problem with today’s technology; others think that we would need lighter, stronger materials as well as faster elevators to make this possible.

TEST 13

Pablo Picasso was one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. He experimented in many different styles and changed the world of art during his time.

Early Life

Pablo Picasso was born in Malaga, Spain in 1881 . His father was a drawing teacher. At 10 Pablo became his father’s pupil and at the age of 13 he held his first exhibition.

His family moved to Barcelona in 1895 where Pablo joined an art academy. In his early period the young artist painted life as he observed it around him – in cafes and on the streets. As a young man he took interest in masterpieces of famous artists like El Greco and de Goya.

At the turn of the century, Picasso went to Paris, which was, at that time, the centre of art and literature.

Blue and Rose period

In 1901 a close friend of Picasso shot himself. This had a great impact on Pablo. He was very sad and began painting his pictures in grey and blue tones instead of bright, vivid colours. This part of his career is called his Blue Period (1901 – 1904)

Later on, he changed his painting style and started using more earth colours – rose, pink or brown. He liked to paint pictures of circus life with dancers and acrobats. This Rose Period lasted until 1907.

Cubism

When Picasso started working with his friend and fellow painter Georges Braque in Paris they started experimenting with a new style that was called cubism.

Picasso and Braque didn’t want to show nature as it really was. They thought that all objects in nature had geometric forms. In cubism, objects were cut into many flat shapes, which looked like a puzzle. All the sides of a person’s face, for example, were shown at once, maybe even with three eyes instead of two . Cubist painters wanted to show all parts of an object from one angle. Picasso and Braque also experimented with other materials , like cloth and newspaper clippings, which they glued onto the canvas. This technique became later known as collage.

TEST 14

A cathedral is a big church that is usually under the control of a bishop. It is usually the seat of a diocese, a church district headed by a bishop. Most cathedrals, especially medieval ones, are located in the centre of a town or city. They served as the centre of public life. Markets, meetings and masses were held there.

Structure

Most cathedrals are built in the shape of a cross. The main entrance is at the west end at the bottom of the cross. There is a long central aisle called the nave and two side aisles. The arms of the cross are the transepts and meet the nave at the crossing. Towers and domes were often built over the crossing.

The altar and the seats for the choir are at the eastern end of the nave in front of the apse, which looks like a semi-circle.

Cathedrals have been built in almost every architectural style. But most of the famous European cathedrals were Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic or Renaissance. The greatest era of building happened in Europe between 1000 and 1500 A.D. Cathedrals were filled with carved sculptures .The walls had paintings and the windows were painted with scenes from the Bible and the lives of the saints.

Byzantine cathedrals

In the first centuries A.D. the centre of Christianity was around the city of Byzantinium, which was later called Constantinople and is now Istanbul. Architecture in the Byzantine Empire was a combination of styles that came from the Middle East and ancient Rome. Hagia Sophia was one of the first Byzantine cathedrals.

TEST 15

            Street Art is a very popular form of art that is spreading quickly all over the world. You can find it on buildings, sidewalks, street signs and trash cans from Tokyo to Paris, from Moscow to Cape Town. Street art has become a global culture and even art museums and galleries are collecting the work of street artists.

            Street art started out very secretly because it is illegal to paint public and private property without permission. People often have different opinions about street art. Some think it is a crime and others think it is a very beautiful new form of culture.

Art experts claim that the movement began in New York in the 1960s. Young adults sprayed words and other images on walls and trains. This colorful, energetic style of writing became known as graffiti. Graffiti art showed that young people wanted to rebel against society. They didn’t want to accept rules and travelled around cities to create paintings that every one could see. In many cases they had trouble with the police and the local government.

            One well-known New York Street artist is Swoon. She cuts out paper images of people and puts them on walls and or sets them up on sidewalks. Swoon didn’t start her career as a street artist. She studied art but, as time went on, got bored with the work she saw in museums and galleries. The people in New York enjoy Swoon’s strong and imaginative style. Some museums have already bought some of her work.

Many street corners in Paris show the work of Space Invader. The French artist uses small pieces of glass to make images of space creatures. He has been doing this for some years and the police have arrested him a few times. On his website (http://www.space-invaders.com/) you can see many other places where he has created this form of art.

            Street artists do their work for a reason. Some of them do not like artists who make so much money in galleries and museums. They choose street art because it is closer to the people. Some artists try to express their political opinion in their work. They often want to protest against big firms and corporations. Others like to do things that are forbidden and hope they don’t get caught.

            Advertising companies also use street art in their ads because it gives you the impression of youth and energy. The New York department store Saks Fifth Avenue recently used a street artist’s design for their shop windows and shopping bags.

            In today’s world the Internet has a big influence on street art. Artists can show their pictures to an audience all over the world. Many city residents, however, say that seeing a picture on the Internet is never as good as seeing it live. The street art movement lives with the energy and life of a big city. There it will continue to change and grow.