HOST:
Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC in VOA Special English.
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I’m Doug Johnson. Today we play music from Jack Johnson …
Answer a listener question about the Amish people …
And report on the winner of a major prize for architecture.
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Pritzker Architecture Prize
HOST:
The Pritzker Architecture Prize is widely considered one of the most important honors a building designer can receive. It is given by the Hyatt Foundation of Los Angeles, California. Every year a jury of building experts chooses the winner. This year, the prize went to the French architect Jean Nouvel. Barbara Klein tells us about this inventive architect.
BARBARA KLEIN:
As you walk along the Seine River in Paris, France, you might see a striking building covered with colorful boxes and walls with growing plants. The Quai Branly Museum houses a large collection of art from different areas of Africa and Asia. The French architect Jean Nouvel designed this building. The Pritzker jury said Nouvel’s work is a brave exploration of new ideas that has stretched the limits of architectural design.
Jean Nouvel has designed two other museums in Paris, the Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art and the Arab World Institute. Windows on one side of the Arab World Institute are covered in metal sheets that have been cut with complex designs. The metal surfaces open and close depending on the strength of the sunshine outside. The design is both traditional and modern, beautiful and useful.
Nouvel has said that context is the most important part of his buildings. He does not design a building just to look good. Instead, he studies the culture, place, and requirements of the building so that it fits in well with its environment and is useful.
More recently, Jean Nouvel designed the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This building has an industrial style that is very modern and inventive. One part of the building extends over the Mississippi River.
Jean Nouvel is currently working on several new projects. These include a “Tour de Verre” building with many levels in New York City. Another new project is the Louvre Abu Dhabi museum in the United Arab Emirates. He will also be building a tall apartment building in the Century City area of Los Angeles, California. Jean Nouvel is expected to accept his Pritzker Prize in June at a ceremony at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
The Amish
HOST:
Our VOA listener question this week comes from Nigeria. Bayo Ogunsola wants to know about the Amish people and where they came from.
The most current government population studies show there are about two hundred thousand Amish people in the United States. Amish immigrants began arriving from Germany and Switzerland in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds. They were expelled from their home countries or chose to leave because of religious oppression. Most settled in the eastern state of Pennsylvania. Today, Ohio has the largest Amish population. Amish people live in nineteen other American states and in Ontario, Canada.
Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County is known as Pennsylvania Dutch Country. About sixteen to eighteen thousand Old Order Amish live there. Dutch is a name for people from the Netherlands, yet many of the Amish came from Germany. Old stories say they were called “Dutch” because English colonists could not say the correct word, “Deutsch.” But language experts now say that people in England often used the term Dutch to mean German. The Amish continue to speak a version of German. However, children learn English in their schools.
Many Amish communities live as their ancestors did long ago. They do not use cars, electricity, telephones, televisions or other common devices. They use horses for agriculture and transportation. They heat their houses by burning wood. They get their water from wells.
The Amish Christian religion is based on the idea of total surrender to God. They are pacifists
