{{#invoke:Infobox|infobox}} Europa, also known as Residence Palace or Van Rompuy's Egg, is a complex of buildings between the Rue de la Loi/Wetstraat and the Chaussée d'Etterbeek/Etterbeeksesteenweg in the European Quarter of Brussels (Belgium). It is formed of three buildings, a press centre and a building currently being renovated (estimated completion: 2013) for use by the European Council, mainly, and even also (for some occasions) by the Council of the European Union as a summit building.[1][2] To the west lies the main Council building, Justus Lipsius and across the road lie the Berlaymont and Charlemagne buildings of the European Commission.
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History [link]
Walloon businessman Lucien Kaisin planned the building following the end of the First World War. It was to be a luxurious apartment block for the bourgeoisie and aristocracy of Brussels following a housing shortage caused by the war.{{#invoke:Namespace detect|main}}{{#invoke:Namespace detect|main}}[citation needed] It was also intended to address the shortage of domestic workers at the time by having them available to all residents. Kaisin described the building as "a small town within a city".{{#invoke:Namespace detect|main}}{{#invoke:Namespace detect|main}}[citation needed]
The building was designed by a Swiss architect, Michel Polak. The foundation stone of the Art Deco building was laid on 30 May 1923 with the first residents moving in in 1927. Associated facilities included a theatre hall, a swimming pool and other commercial services such as a restaurant.[3] It was a prestigious housing collective for the most privileged layers of society. The building has partly been listed as a historic monument.[4]
The building only had a short commercial success. In 1940 tenants were forced to leave,[5] as the building was requisitioned as the headquarters of the occupying German army during the Nazi occupation of Belgium during the Second World War.[6] In September 1944, after the liberation of Brussels, the building was taken over as headquarters for SHAEF and RAF Second Tactical Air Force.[7]
After the War the building was turned into administrative offices for the Belgian state.[2] At the end of the 1960s, as part of work to modernise the area during the construction of an underground railway line beneath rue de la Loi, a new aluminium façade extended the north western facade facing the Rue de la Loi,[2] which was under the supervision of Michel Polak's sons. Finally, in 1988, the eastern part of the building was demolished to make way for the construction of the Justus Lipsius building. The original façades of the Résidence Palace building, the entrances and the central ground-floor corridor are now listed as a national heritage site.
Usage [link]
Today the various blocks are used for mixed purposes. The Belgian government bought the complex in 1947 and used Bloc A (the north-east L-shaped building) for administrative offices. Bloc B (the south-west C-shaped building) and Bloc C (a smaller building to the south east of that) have in recent years served as an international press centre used by journalists for their coverage of activities related to the major European Union institutions nearby. A pre-war period swimming pool, a theatre and a restaurant have been maintained. Apartments are now being built in the courtyard to the south of bloc B.
Bloc A redevelopment [link]
Following the 2004 enlargement of the European Union, the Treaty of Nice declaration that all European Council meetings would be held in Brussels, and the creation of a permanent President of the European Council, the European Council and the Council of the European Union (the Council) needed more office space and meeting rooms for the Council's bi-weekly meetings and the four European Council summits each year.[2][8]
In 2004, a suggestion made by the Belgian government that Bloc A of the Résidence Palace be taken over by the Council of the European Union and the European Council was adopted.[9] A European competition was opened to redesign the building to suit the needs of the institutions. In 2005 it was announced that Samyn & Partners (Belgium), Studio Valle Progettazioni (Italy) and Buro Happold (United Kingdom) had cooperated and submitted the winning design.[9] The refurbished bloc A and its extension was planned to be finished and inaugurated in 2012.[1] Its opening has been delayed a year and its cost has risen from €240 million to €315 million. The complex would be handed over from the Belgian state to the Council for the symbolic price of €1.[8]
The work will renovate the existing sections of bloc A, demolish the 1960s extended facade and connect up the two wings to turn the L-shape into a cube. The extension would form a large glass atrium surrounding an urn or lantern shaped structure housing the meeting rooms.[2] The facade of the new extension will be a "patchwork of traditional wood-frame windows from different European countries" with meeting and press rooms covering over 6000 square metres in an urn-shaped structure, each floor varying in size. The original 1920s part of the palace will be restored and also form part of the complex. The building will also be the first in Belgium to be continuously monitored by environmental auditors, it will have solar panels on the roof and recycle rain water.[8]
See also [link]
References [link]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Result of the architectural competition for the restructuring of block A of the Résidence Palace Building for use by the European Council, Council of the European Union
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 NEW HEADQUARTERS OF THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION, Samyn and Partners
- ↑ RÉSIDENCE PALACE Project Factsheet, Council of the European Union
- ↑ https://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&hl=en&js=n&u=https%3A%2F%2Ffanyv88.com%3A443%2Fhttp%2Fwww.eurobru.com%2Fmonum060.htm&sl=fr&tl=en&history_state0=
- ↑ https://www.blbe.be/default.asp?V_DOC_ID=1962
- ↑ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/6206556/New-EU-showcase-building-to-cost-taxpayers-280-million.html
- ↑ https://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/01/a9009001.shtml
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Pop, Valentina (14 September 2009) Top EU institution to move into eco-friendly building, EU Observer
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 https://www.uia-architectes.org/texte/england/Residence/2-results.html
External links [link]
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Résidence Palace |
- Website on the Europa building
- Result of the architectural competition for the restructuring of block A of the Résidence Palace Building for use by the European Council - Council of the European Union
- Sélection pour la participation au concours international pour la restructuration du (French){{#invoke:Namespace detect|main}}
- Erweiterung des Gebäudes "Résidence Palace" (German){{#invoke:Namespace detect|main}}
- Press centre website, palace information
- UIA architects, results
- Samyn and Partners, details on reconstruction
- Studio Valle Progettazioni (Italian){{#invoke:Namespace detect|main}}
- The Résidence Palace - future home of the European Council, Council of the European Union
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Europa (Covenant album)
Europa is Covenant's third full length album. It was released on May 26, 1998, by 21st Circuitry. Tracks such as Leviathan and Go Film remain popular favourites and are played often by the band. Both were recorded live on 2007's In Transit live album. Go Film was also released on the "Euro EP" along with Tension.
Track listing
References
Europa (currency)
The europa was a token coinage created in 1928 by Joseph Archer, a politician and industrialist from the Nièvre region of France. The currency was promoted by Philibert Besson, the Elected Deputy for the Haute-Loire who, along with Archer, is considered an important figure in the early European federalist movement. The coins were minted in the name of a "Federated States of Europe" (États Fédérés d'Europe). The currency never circulated except unofficially between federalists of the Nièvre region. Two denominations were produced, both depicting Louis Pasteur: one worth 1 europa and one worth 1/10 of a europa.
Further reading
External links
Romani people
The Romani (also spelled Romany; /ˈroʊməni/, /ˈrɒ-/), or Roma, are a traditionally itinerant ethnic group living mostly in Europe and the Americas, who originate from the northwestern regions of the Indian subcontinent, specifically from Northern India, presumably from the northwestern Indian states Rajasthan,Haryana and Punjab. The Romani are widely known among English-speaking people by the exonym and racial slur "Gypsies" (or "Gipsies"), which, according to many Romani people, connotes illegality and irregularity. Other exonyms are Ashkali and Sinti.
Romani are dispersed, with their concentrated populations in Europe — especially Central, Eastern and Southern Europe including Turkey, Spain and Southern France. They originated in Northern India and arrived in Mid-West Asia, then Europe, around 1,000 years ago, either separating from the Dom people or, at least, having a similar history; the ancestors of both the Romani and the Dom left North India sometime between the sixth and eleventh century.
Gypsy (Of a Strange and Distant Time)
"Gypsy (Of a Strange and Distant Time)" is a 1969 song by the progressive rock band The Moody Blues, from their album To Our Children's Children's Children, a concept album about space travel. Due to its long name, the song is often referred to on compilation albums as simply "Gypsy."
The song lyrics, related to the album's space travel theme, describe a traveller who is "travelling in panic all direction blind, aching for the warmth of a burning sun, freezing in the emptiness of where he'd come from." The lyric suggests that the traveller may never be returning home to earth as she is "Left without a hope of coming home."
Personnel
External links
Gypsy (musical)
Gypsy is a 1959 musical with music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a book by Arthur Laurents. Gypsy is loosely based on the 1957 memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee, the famous striptease artist, and focuses on her mother, Rose, whose name has become synonymous with "the ultimate show business mother." It follows the dreams and efforts of Rose to raise two daughters to perform onstage and casts an affectionate eye on the hardships of show business life. The character of Louise is based on Lee, and the character of June is based on Lee's sister, the actress June Havoc.
The musical contains many songs that became popular standards, including "Everything's Coming up Roses", "Together (Wherever We Go)", "Small World", "Some People", "Let Me Entertain You", "All I Need Is the Girl", and "Rose's Turn". It is frequently considered one of the crowning achievements of the mid-20th century's conventional musical theatre art form, often called the "book musical".
Gypsy has been referred to as the greatest American musical by numerous critics and writers, among them Ben Brantley ("what may be the greatest of all American musicals...") and Frank Rich. Rich wrote that "Gypsy is nothing if not Broadway's own brassy, unlikely answer to 'King Lear.'" Theater critic Clive Barnes wrote that "'Gypsy' is one of the best of musicals..." and described the character of Rose as "one of the few truly complex characters in the American musical...."
Fiesta (R. Kelly song)
"Fiesta (Remix)" is a number-one R&B single by singer R. Kelly and featuring rappers Jay-Z & Boo & Gotti. The hit song spent five weeks at number-one on the US R&B chart and peaked at number six on the US pop chart. R. Kelly and Jay-Z have worked several times together. In 2002, they released album "The Best of Both Worlds" which sold 285,000 copies in its first week. The single is ranked by Billboard as the best selling and most played R&B/Hip Hop song of 2001.
Background
“Fiesta (Remix)” follows the previous singles and music videos, “I Wish” and “I Wish (Remix)”. In 2001, this song spent five weeks at #1 on the US R&B chart and also reached #6 on the US pop chart. The original fiesta track is one of nineteen tracks on the TP-2.com album by R. Kelly.
Music video
The music video for the single is created by R. Kelly and Little X.
