 |
Presidential Homes around the world
Published on 7/10/2007 under Cool Places -TAGS: presidential homes, presidential houses
| Tweet |
Kremlin (Russia)
The Moscow Kremlin is a historic fortified complex at the very heart of Moscow, overlooking the Moskva River (to the south), Saint Basil's Cathedral (often mistaken by westerners as the Kremlin) and Red Square (to the east) and the Alexander Garden (to the west). It is the best known of kremlins (Russian citadels) and includes four palaces, four cathedrals, and the enclosing Kremlin Wall with Kremlin towers. The first recorded stone structures in the Kremlin were built at the behest of Ivan Kalita in the late 1320s and early 1330s, after Peter, Metropolitan of Rus had moved his seat from Kiev to Moscow. By 1475, the principalities of medieval Russia were united under Grand Prince Ivan III, who assumed the title of the Grand Prince of All Rus, envisioning Moscow as the only legitimate successor to Rome and Constantinople. In order to illustrate his imperial ambitions, Ivan organised the reconstruction of the Kremlin, inviting a number of skilled architects from Renaissance Italy, like Pietro Antonio Solari and Marco Ruffo. During Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812, the French forces occupied the Kremlin from 2 September to 11 October. When Napoleon fled Moscow, he ordered the whole Kremlin to be blown up. The Kremlin Arsenal, several portions of the Kremlin Wall and several wall towers were destroyed by explosions and fires damaged the Faceted Chamber and churches. Explosions continued for three days, from 21 to 23 October. Fortunately, the rain damaged the fuses, and the damage was less severe than intended. After that, it took the Soviets to take the government from Petrograd to Moscow again on 1918.
Palac Prezydencki (Poland)
It was in 1818 that the palace began its ongoing career as a governmental structure, when it became the seat of the Viceroy of the Polish (Congress) Kingdom under Russian occupation. Following Poland's resurrection after World War I, in 1918, the building was taken over by the newly reconstituted Polish authorities and became the seat of the Council of Ministers. During World War II, it served the country's German occupiers as a Deutsches Haus and survived intact the 1944 Warsaw Uprising. After the war, it resumed its function as seat of the Polish Council of Ministers. In July 1994 it replaced the much smaller and more difficult to protect. Belweder palace as the official residence of the Polish President.
Palácio do Planalto (Brazil)
The architect of the Palácio do Planalto was Oscar Niemeyer, the "creator" of most of the important buildings in the new capital of Brasília. The idea was to project an image of simplicity and modernity using fine lines and waves to compose the columns and exterior structures. The Palace is four stories high, and has an area of 36,000 m². Four other adjacent buildings are also part of the complex.
Presidential Palace (Vietnam)
When Vietnam achieved independence in 1954, Ho Chi Minh refused to live in the grand structure for symbolic reasons, although he still received state guests there, and he eventually built a traditional Vietnamese stilt house and carp pond on the grounds. Today, Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum stands nearby and the Presidential Palace remains part of Hanoi's cultural core. The palace hosts government meetings.
Palazzo del Quirinale (Italy)
Grassalkovich Palace (Slovakia)
Rashtrapati Bhavan (India)
During the Delhi Durbar year of 1911, it was decided that the capital of India would be shifted from Calcutta to Delhi. This was announced on December 12 by King George V. As the plan for New Delhi took shape, the Governor-General's residence was given an enormous scale and prominent position. The British architect Edwin Landseer Lutyens, a key member of the city-planning process, was also given the prime architectural opportunity of designing the building. The Viceroy declared that the palace was to be classical, but with an Indian motif.
Schloss Bellevue (Germany)
It served as the official residence of the Crown Prince of Germany until 1918. The treaty ending the Franco-Prussian War was signed here on 3 September 1870. In the mid-1930s, it was used as a museum of ethnography, before being renovated as a guest house for the Third Reich. It was damaged in May 1945, at the end of the Second World War, and refurbished substantially in the 1950s. From 1957, it was a secondary residence of the President of Germany, a pied a terre in Berlin in addition to his primary residence at the Villa Hammerschmidt in Bonn. It was refurbished again in 1986/7, and Richard von Weizsäcker moved the primary residence of the President of Germany here in 1994, after the German reunification. It was reconstructed from 2004 to 2005 to remedy defects in earlier renovations. The President of Germany used Schloss Charlottenburg for representative purposes during this period. Schloss Bellevue became his primary residence again in January 2006.
The White House (USA)
Casa Rosada (Argentina)
Sources: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
|
|
|
Share this:
Corrections? Factual Grammar/Spelling |
|||||||
 | provided by:  and |
World's Most Bizarre Political Candidates| Search: | Lijit Search |
 | ||
 |
10 Gorgeous Women (Who Were Born Male) (NSFW / 18+) | |
 |
10 Handsome Men (Who Were Born Female) (NSFW / 18+) | |
 |
12 Disturbingly Weird Body Shapes (NSFW / 18+) | |
Oddee by Category:
Search Oddee.com:
Sites we like:
I-am-bored | 2leep
CollegeHumor | Leenks
Gajitz | UniqueDaily
Uncoached | Unreality
DRB | Inspiratorium
WebUrbanist | Ecoist
IncredibleThings | Dornob
GorillaMask | Eat Liver Neatorama | Uphaa
Oddee.com makes PC Magazine's Top 100 Web Sites of 2008!
Great articles on other blogs: