Задание №10 — Чтение

Sydney Opera House was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2007 as one of the most iconic buildings in the world. Its planning began in the 1940s, as the existing building for large theatrical productions was not large enough. The Opera House was designed by a Danish architect Jorn Utzon whose design was selected as the winning one among 232 other entries in an international design competition. The formal inauguration of the building took place on 20 October 1973.

The Eiffel Tower was built in 1889 in Paris. It was designed as an entrance to the 1889 World’s Fair and named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower. However, initially the plan was to make it stand for only twenty years since its construction. The City had planned to tear it down in 1909, but as the tower proved to be valuable for the image of the city, it was allowed to remain. Now it has become the symbol of the city, seen as one of the World’s wonders.

The Electric Forest Festival, which started less than a decade ago, is a four-day multi-genre event, held in Rothbury, Michigan. The main focus of the event is upon electronic and jam bands. But what captures the eyes is a special atmosphere during this festival. The surrounding environment becomes a kaleidoscope of laser light shows. The mixture of electronic lights and the sounds appeal to different senses and together create a unique, surreal, magical experience.

Casa Mila, designed by the architect Antoni Gaudí, is one of Barcelona’s World Heritage sites and is one of the most visited attractions the city has to offer. The building is also known as “La Pedrera” translated as the Stone wave, because of the facade which is made up completely with natural stones and does not have any straight lines. Gaudi explained it by the fact that straight lines cannot be found anywhere in the wild landscape and it can be made only by men.

To mark the end of the Christmas season, Shetland in Scotland celebrates a variety of fire festivals every year. The most interesting of them is held at the capital, where this practice was born as early as in 1876, when strong men dragged barrels with burning tar on sledges. Today, thousands of people dress up in period-clothes. The procession burns down the model of a Viking ship. The brightness of the fire and men in clothes of the long-gone era make a spectacle show.

Burj Khalifa is an 829.8 m skyscraper in Dubai. It is the tallest structure in the world. There are hotels, residences and observational laboratories in the 163 floors of the building. It’s not only the tallest building in the world, it is also the tallest freestanding structure in the world, has the highest number of stories in the world, highest occupied floor in the world, highest outdoor observation deck in the world, and an elevator with the longest travel distance in the world.

The Taj Mahal is an architectural marvel made of white marble situated on the banks of the river Yamuna in Agra, India. It was built by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal. Nowadays around 8 million tourists visit the Taj Mahal every year. They come to see the changing colors of the Taj Mahal, which change from pink in the morning, milky white in the evening and golden at night when lit by the moon.