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Piccadilly Circus - London - Piccadilly Circus is a famous road junction and public space of London's West End in the City of Westminster, built in 1819 to connect Regent Street with the major shopping street of Piccadilly. In this context a circus, from the Latin word meaning a circle, is a circular open space at a street junction. [1] It now links directly to the theatres on Shaftesbury Avenue as well as the Haymarket, Coventry Street (onwards to Leicester Square) and Glasshouse Street. The Circus is close to major shopping and entertainment areas in a central location at the heart of the West End. Its status as a major traffic intersection has made Piccadilly Circus a busy meeting point and a tourist attraction in its own right. The Circus is particularly known for its video display and neon signs mounted on the corner building on the northern side, as well as the Shaftesbury memorial fountain and statue of an archer popularly known as Eros (sometimes called The Angel of Christian Charity, but intended to be Anteros). It is surrounded by several noted buildings, including the London Pavilion and Criterion Theatre. Directly underneath the plaza is Piccadilly Circus London Underground station. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piccadilly_Circus)
Piccadilly Circus - London
Rating 4.00/5 (8 votes cast)
Black Cab in front of St Martin's Lane Hotel - London - From its dazzling location at the hub of Covent Garden, West End theatres and Trafalgar Square, St Martins Lane is a dramatic and daring reinvention of the urban resort. Smart, witty and sophisticated, Philippe StarckÂ’s design is a brilliant collision of influences - from the modern to the baroque - that suffuses the hotel with energy, vitality and magic. Unique features include the acclaimed Asia de Cuba restaurant, wildly popular Light Bar, and interactive light displays in every Guest Room that encourage guests to personalize their own individual space, and help to turn this London hotel into a beautiful and ever changing mosaic of color. (Source: http://www.stmartinslane.com)
Black Cab in front of St Martin's Lane Hotel - London
Rating 3.50/5 (4 votes cast)
Merry-go-round in Coven Garden - London - The history of carousels dates back to the 12th century. In order to test a rider's skill, scented clay balls were thrown from one Arabian horseman to another. If there were riders that were untouched by the scent of the clay, they were considered to be superior riders. The French in the 17th century were able to change the ancient clay. A wheel which had wooden arms and suspended horses was used in place of the ancient clay. A pole was placed in the center of a circle, along with a wooden horse, which rotated around the pole. The object of the game was for the rider to attempt to spear a small brass ring on the outside section of the machine. In a tournament-type game during the late 1700's or early 1800's, this machine was given the name of
Merry-go-round in Coven Garden - London
Rating 3.46/5 (13 votes cast)
Carrousel à Coven Garden - Londres - Apparemment déjà utilisé dans l'Antiquité, le manège (ou carrousel) était à l'origine un lieu circulaire où l'on pouvait pratiquer l'équitation, faire travailler un cheval à la longe ou exécuter une démonstration de dressage avec des chevaux (cirque). Mais c'est en Italie que le manège réapparut au XVIe siècle. Le mot manège viendrait de l'italien maneggio. En France, le manège du roi fut institué sous Henri III. (Source: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man%C3%A8ge_(%C3%A9quitation))
Carrousel à Coven Garden - Londres
Rating 2.83/5 (6 votes cast)
Red Phone Box & Big Ben - London - Although arguably an endangered species these days, the red telephone box created by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott has long been considered a design icon: one of those items that instantly marked the nationÂ’s identity to overseas visitors. Nothing that has been designed since to fulfil the same purpose has been anywhere near so fondly regarded. And since so many of us have mobile phones now anyway, we could be forgiven for hardly noticing. Public telephony did not always take place in an illuminated, sheltered kiosk on the street. In the late 19th century, public phones were situated in hotel foyers and shops, very often with an attendant on hand in the posher establishments to contact the telephone exchange on your behalf and collect the fee. The provision of street kiosks began in the early 1900s, with each municipal authority producing its own design. (Source: http://www.icons.org.uk/theicons/collection/the-phone-box/biography/the-red-phone-box-biography-finished)
Red Phone Box & Big Ben - London
Rating 3.64/5 (11 votes cast)
Fountain in Trafalgar Square - London - The fountains in Trafalgar Square, London, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and added in 1939.
Fountain in Trafalgar Square - London
Rating 3.50/5 (10 votes cast)
Limo, Sculpture & Big Ben in London - With something as stylish and opulent as a limousine, it is no surprise that limos originated in France. Many hundreds of years ago, shepherds in Limousin, France, developed a hooded over garment to protect themselves from the rain and cold which they called a 'limousine'. In the 1900s when carriages were first emerging, a similar motivation lead to a cover being developed to create covered travelling compartments. There was also a Parisian coach builder from Limousin who may have been responsible for the word limousine applying to covered coaches, which were of course always chauffeur driven. James P Carey was one of the first to take advantage of the demand for chauffeur driven luxury cars. In New York in 1921, Carey realised that visitors to this ever bustling city wanted to travel in more style than a taxi cab offered and so used the early Packards and Cadillacs to launch his multi-million dollar limousine empire still in operation today. Another New Yorker, David Klein, was determined to make stretch limousines available and operating in every city. After a taxi strike in 1970 where he 'chauffeured' stranded commuters across the city, Klein also seized the opportunity to offer an alternative to cabs. Moving up from selling Volkswagen's and running a valet parking concession, Klein used this experience to form a partnership with a high school friend and launched his business. (Source: http://www.limobroker.co.uk/articles/limousine-information/limo-history/limo-history-423.htm)
Limo, Sculpture & Big Ben in London
Rating 3.67/5 (6 votes cast)
Painting of the Royal Family at National Portrait Gallery - St Martin's Place - London - The gallery opened to the public in 1856. It houses portraits of historically important and famous British people, selected on the basis of the significance of the sitter. The collection includes photographs and caricatures as well as paintings, drawings and sculpture. The National Portrait Gallery also houses the Chandos portrait, arguably the most famous portrait of William Shakespeare. Not all of the portraits are exceptional artistically, although there are self-portraits by William Hogarth, Sir Joshua Reynolds and other British artists of note. Some, such as the group portrait of the participants in the Somerset House Conference of 1604, are important historical documents in their own right. Often the curiosity value is greater than the artistic worth of a work, as in the case of the anamorphic portrait of Edward VI by William Scrots, Patrick Branwell Brontë's painting of his sisters Charlotte, Emily and Anne, or a sculpture of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in medieval costume. Portraits of living figures were allowed from 1969. The Gallery moved to its present building north of and adjacent to the National Gallery in 1896. It was designed by Ewan Christian in a Neo-Renaissance style, built by Shillitoe & Son and has been expanded twice. The first extension was funded by Lord Duveen in 1933, whose wing runs along Orange Street, and the second by Dr. Christopher Ondaatje in 2000. The Ondaatje Wing occupies a slither of land between the two 19th-century buildings of the National Gallery and the NPG and is notable for its immense, two-storey escalator that takes visitors to the earliest part of the collection, the Tudor portraits. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Portrait_Gallery_(London))
Painting of the Royal Family at National Portrait Gallery
Rating 4.00/5 (9 votes cast)
Hampshire Hotel - Leicester Square - London - Leicester Square is a pedestrianised square in the West End of London, England. The Square lies within an area bound by Lisle Street, to the north; Charing Cross Road, to the east; Orange Street, to the south; and Whitcomb Street, to the west. The park at the centre of the Square is bound by Cranbourn Street, to the north; Leicester Street, to the east; Irving Street, to the south; and a section of road designated simply as Leicester Square, to the west. It is within the City of Westminster, and about equal distances (about 400 yards or 300 metres) north of Trafalgar Square, east of Piccadilly Circus, west of Covent Garden, and south of Cambridge Circus. The Square is named after Robert Sidney, 2nd Earl of Leicester, who purchased four acres (1.6 hectares) in St. Martin's Field in 1630; by 1635, he had built himself a large house, Leicester House, at the northern end. The area in front of the house was then enclosed, depriving inhabitants of St. Martin's Parish of their right to use the previously common land. The parishioners appealed to King Charles I, and he appointed three members of the Privy Council to arbitrate. Lord Leicester was ordered to keep part of his land (thereafter known as Leicester Field and later as Leicester Square) open for the parishioners. (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leicester_Square)
Hampshire Hotel - Leicester Square - London
Rating 3.50/5 (8 votes cast)
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