title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: Mohammed traveled to the Philippines in 1994 to work with his nephew Ramzi Yousef on the Bojinka plot, a Manila-based plot to destroy 12 commercial airliners flying routes between the United States, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. The 9/11 Commission Report says that "this marked the first time KSM took part in the actual planning of a terrorist operation."


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: Bojinka plans included renting or buying a Cessna, packing it with explosives and crash landing it into CIA headquarters, with a backup plan to hijack the twelfth airliner in the air and use that instead. This information was reported in detail to the U.S. at the time.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: In December 1994, Yousef had engaged in a test of a bomb on Philippine Airlines Flight 434 using only about ten percent of the explosives that were to be used in each of the bombs to be planted on U.S. airliners. The test resulted in the death of a Japanese national on board a flight from the Philippines to Japan. Mohammed conspired with Yousef in the plot until it was uncovered on January 6, 1995. Yousef was captured February 7 of that same year.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was indicted on terrorism charges in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in January 1996 for his alleged involvement in Operation Bojinka, and was subsequently placed on the October 10, 2001, initial list of the FBI's 22 Most Wanted Terrorists.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: By the time the Bojinka plot was discovered, Mohammed had returned to Qatar and his job as a project engineer at the country's Ministry of Electricity and Water. He traveled in 1995 to Sudan, Yemen, Malaysia, and Brazil to visit elements of the worldwide jihadist community, although no evidence connects him to specific terrorist actions in any of those locations. On his trip to Sudan, he attempted to meet with Osama bin Laden, who was at the time living there, aided by Sudanese political leader Hassan al-Turabi. After the U.S. asked the Qatari government to arrest Mohammed in January 1996, he fled to Afghanistan, where he renewed his alliance with Abdul Rasul Sayyaf. Later that year, he formed a working relationship with Bin Laden, who had settled there.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: Bin Laden and his colleagues relocated their operations to Afghanistan at this time. Mohammed Atef, bin Laden's chief of operations and also known at the time as Abu Hafs al-Masri, arranged a meeting between bin Laden and Mohammed in Tora Bora sometime in mid-1996, in which Mohammed outlined a plan that would eventually become the quadruple hijackings in 2001. Bin Laden urged Mohammed to become a full-fledged member of Al Qaeda, but he continued to refuse such a commitment until around early 1999, after the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: In 1997, Mohammed moved his family from Iran to Karachi, Pakistan. That year, he tried unsuccessfully to join mujahideen leader Ibn al-Khattab in Chechnya, another area of special interest to Mohammed. Unable to travel to Chechnya, he returned to Afghanistan. He ultimately accepted bin Laden's invitation to move to Kandahar and join al-Qaeda as a full-fledged member. Eventually, he became leader of Al Qaeda's media committee.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: The first hijack plan that Mohammed presented to the leadership of al-Qaeda called for several airplanes on both east and west coasts to be hijacked and flown into targets. His plan evolved from an earlier foiled plot known as the Bojinka plot (see above). Bin Laden rejected some potential targets suggested by Mohammed, such as the U.S. Bank Tower in Los Angeles, as he wished to simplify the attacks.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: In late 1998 or early 1999, bin Laden gave approval for Mohammed to proceed to organize the plot. Meetings in early 1999 took place with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Osama bin Laden, and his military chief, Mohammed Atef. Bin Laden led the plot and provided financial support. He was also involved in selecting the participants, including choosing Mohamed Atta as the lead hijacker. Khalid Sheikh provided operational support, such as selecting targets and helping arrange travel for the hijackers. Atef directed the actions of the hijackers.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: After Atta was chosen as the leader of the mission, "he met with Bin Laden to discuss the targets: the World Trade Center, which represented the U.S. economy; the Pentagon, a symbol of the U.S. military; and the U.S. Capitol, the perceived source of U.S. policy in support of Israel. The White House was also on the list, as Bin Laden considered it a political symbol and wanted to attack it as well." If any pilot could not reach his intended target, he was to crash the plane.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: According to testimony by Philip Zelikow, bin Laden was motivated by a desire to punish the US for supporting Israel and wanted to move up the attack date. Mohammed argued for ensuring the teams were prepared.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: [Bin Laden] allegedly told KSM it would be sufficient simply to down the planes and not hit specific targets. KSM stood his ground, arguing that the operation would not be successful unless the pilots were fully trained and the hijacking teams were larger.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: In a 2002 interview with Al Jazeera journalist Yosri Fouda, Mohammed admitted that he and Ramzi bin al-Shibh were involved in the "Holy Tuesday operation". ("Holy Tuesday operation" was the terrorists' code name for the 9/11 attacks, and the attacks actually did take place on a Tuesday.) KSM, however, disputes this claim via his Personal Representative: "I never stated to the Al Jazeera reporter that I was the head of the al-Qaeda military committee."


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: In a April 2002 interview with Al Jazeera correspondent Yosri Fouda, KSM, and Ramzi bin al-Shibh described the preparations for 9/11 attacks and said that they first thought of "striking at a couple of nuclear facilities" in the U.S. but then "it was eventually decided to leave out nuclear targets for now."


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: According to a CNN interview with intelligence expert Rohan Gunaratna, "Daniel Pearl was going in search of the al Qaeda network that was operational in Karachi, and it was at the instruction of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed that Daniel Pearl was killed." On October 12, 2006, "Time" magazine reported that "KSM confessed under CIA interrogation that he personally committed the murder." On March 15, 2007, the Pentagon stated that Mohammed had confessed to the murder. The statement quoted Mohammed as saying, "I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan. For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head." This confession was gained under torture, and Mohammed listed many other crimes at the same time.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: According to an investigative report published in January 2011 by Georgetown University, the Federal Bureau of Investigation used vein matching to determine that the perpetrator in the video of the killing of Pearl was most likely Mohammed, notably through identifying a "bulging vein" running across his hand. Concerned that the confession obtained through waterboarding did not hold up in court; federal officials used this forensic evidence to bolster their case.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: On September 11, 2002, members of Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) claimed to have killed or captured Sheikh Mohammed during a raid in Karachi that resulted in bin al-Shibh's capture. This Pakistani claim was false.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: Mohammed was captured in Rawalpindi, Pakistan (about 20 km southwest of Islamabad), on March 1, 2003, by the Pakistani ISI, possibly in a joint action with the CIA's Special Activities Division paramilitary operatives and officers of the American Diplomatic Security Service. He has been in U.S. custody since that time.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: Initially, Mohammed was held in the CIA's Salt Pit ("Cobalt") prison in Afghanistan. After just a "few minutes" of questioning at "Cobalt", he was subject to "enhanced interrogation techniques". He was slapped, grabbed in the face, placed in stress positions, placed in standing sleep deprivation, doused with water, and subjected to rectal rehydration multiple times, without a determination of medical need.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: During 2003, Mohammad was held at a secret CIA prison, or black site, in Poland, where the CIA waterboarded him 183 times. He was then transferred to another secret CIA prison in Romania.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: In September 2006, the U.S. government announced it had moved Mohammed from a secret CIA prison (or black site) to the military custody at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: The Red Cross, Human Rights Watch and Mohammed consider that the harsh interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, which he received from U.S. agents amount to torture. Mohammad was also subject to sleep deprivation for a period of days, during much of which he was forced to stand.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: According to later reports, Mohammed initially told American interrogators he would not answer any questions until he was provided with a lawyer, which was refused. He claims to have been kept naked for more than a month during his isolation and interrogations, and said he was "questioned by an unusual number of female handlers".


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: A CIA document reveals that Jane Harman (D-CA) and Porter Goss (R-FL) of the House Intelligence Committee were briefed on July 13, 2004, by the CIA Deputy Director for Operations James Pavitt, General Counsel Scott Muller, and CIA Inspector General John L. Helgerson on the status of the interrogation process of Mohammed. By this date, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had been subjected to 183 applications of waterboarding.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: A U.S. official has clarified that the "183" number represents the number of times water was poured onto Mohammed's face—not the number of times the CIA waterboarded him. According to a 2007 Red Cross report, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was subjected a total of "five sessions of ill-treatment."


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: "The water was poured 183 times – there were 183 pours," the official explained, adding that "each pour was a matter of seconds."


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: On October 12, 2004, Human Rights Watch reported that 11 suspects, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, had "disappeared" to a semi-secret prison in Jordan, and may have been tortured there under the direction of the CIA. At the time, Jordanian and American officials denied those allegations.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: On February 5, 2008, the CIA Director Michael Hayden told a Senate committee that his agents had used waterboarding on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. A 2005 U.S. Justice Department memo released in April 2009 stated that Mohammed had undergone waterboarding 183 times in March 2003.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: In October 2006, Mohammed described his mistreatment and torture in detention, including the waterboarding, to a representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Mohammed said that he had provided a lot of false information, which he had supposed the interrogators wanted to hear, in order to stop the mistreatment. In the 2006 interview with the Red Cross, Mohammed claimed to have been waterboarded in five different sessions during the first month of interrogation in his third place of detention. While the Justice Department memos did not explain exactly what the numbers represented, a U.S. official with knowledge of the interrogation programs explained the 183 figure represented the number of times water was applied to the detainee's face during the waterboarding sessions, rather than separate sessions.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: In March 2007, after four years in captivity, including six months of detention and alleged torture at Guantanamo Bay, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed—as it was claimed by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal Hearing in Guantanamo Bay—confessed to masterminding the September 11 attacks, the Richard Reid shoe bombing attempt to blow up an airliner over the Atlantic Ocean, the Bali nightclub bombing in Indonesia, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and various foiled attacks. "I was responsible for the 9/11 operation from A to Z," Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said in a statement read Saturday during a Combatant Status Review Tribunal at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: According to the "unclassified summary of evidence" presented during the CSRT hearing, a computer hard drive seized during the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed contained the following:


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: At the hearing, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said the computer belonged not to him, but to Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, arrested together with him.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: In June 2008, a "New York Times" article, citing unnamed CIA officers, claimed that Mohammed had been held in a black site or secret facility in Poland near Szymany Airport, about 100 miles north of Warsaw. There he was interrogated under waterboarding before he began to "cooperate."


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: In 2009, Mohammed described his actions and motivations in a document publicly released and known as "The Islamic Response to the Government's Nine Accusations."


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: In April 2011, the British newspaper, "The Telegraph" said it received leaked documents regarding the Guantanamo Bay interrogations of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The documents cited Mohammed as saying that, if Osama bin Laden is captured or killed by the Coalition of the Willing, an al-Qaeda sleeper cell would detonate a "weapon of mass destruction" in a "secret location" in Europe, and promised it would be "a nuclear hellstorm".


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: Ali Khan, the father of Majid Khan, another one of the 14 "high-value detainees," released an affidavit on April 16, 2006, that reported that interrogators subjected Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's children, aged 6 and 8 years old, to abusive interrogation.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: On September 6, 2006, then-American President George W. Bush confirmed, for the first time, that the CIA had held "high-value detainees" for interrogation in secret prisons around the world. He also announced that fourteen senior captives, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, were being transferred from CIA custody, to military custody, at Guantanamo Bay detention camp and that these fourteen captives could now expect to face charges before Guantanamo military commissions.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: In March 2007, Mohammed testified before a closed-door hearing in Guantánamo Bay. According to transcripts of the hearing released by the Pentagon, he said, "I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z." The transcripts also show him confessing to:


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: On March 15, 2007, BBC News reported that "Transcripts of his testimony were translated from Arabic and edited by the U.S. Department of Defense to remove sensitive intelligence material before release. It appeared, from a judge's question, that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had made allegations of torture in US custody." In the Defense Department transcript, Mohammed said his statement was not made under duress but Mohammed and human rights advocates have alleged that he was tortured. CIA officials have previously told ABC News that "Mohammed lasted the longest under waterboarding, two and a half minutes, before beginning to talk." Legal experts say this could taint all his statements. Forensic psychiatrist Michael Welner, M.D., an expert in false confessions, observed from the testimony transcript that his concerns about his family may have been far more influential in soliciting Mohammed's cooperation than any earlier reported mistreatment.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: One CIA official cautioned that "many of Mohammed's claims during interrogation were 'white noise' designed to send the U.S. on wild goose chases or to get him through the day's interrogation session." For example, according to Mike Rogers, a former FBI agent and the top Republican on the terrorism panel of the House Intelligence Committee, he admitted responsibility for the Bali nightclub bombing, but his involvement "could have been as small as arranging a safe house for travel. It could have been arranging finance." Mohammed also made the admission that he was "responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center Operation," which killed six and injured more than 1,000 when a bomb was detonated in an underground garage, Mohammed did not plan the attack, but he may have supported it. Michael Welner noted that by offering legitimate information to interrogators, Mohammed had secured the leverage to provide misinformation as well.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: In an article discussing the reliability of Khalid's confession and the motive for giving misinformation under torture, Ali Soufan, a former FBI special agent with considerable experience interrogating al-Qaeda operatives, pointed out that:


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: His words are echoed by the U.S. Army Training Manual's section on interrogation, which suggests that:


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: As an example of this the article discloses that although the George W. Bush administration made claims that the water-boarding (simulated drowning) of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed produced vital information that allowed them to break up a plot to attack the U.S. Bank Tower (formerly Library Tower and First Interstate Bank World Center) in Los Angeles in 2002, this has been proven to be untrue. In 2002 Sheikh Mohammed was busy evading capture in Pakistan. Likewise the claim by former George W Bush Attorney General Michael Mukasey and former CIA director of the National Clandestine Service, Jose Rodriguez, that the torture of Khalid Mohammed produced the most significant lead in finding Osama bin Laden, has also been shown to be false. According to U.S. Senator John McCain, "The trail to bin Laden did not begin with a disclosure from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times ... not only did the use of 'enhanced interrogation techniques' on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed not provide us with key leads on bin Laden's courier, Abu Ahmed; it actually produced false and misleading information."


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: After Mohammed arrived at Guantánamo, a team of FBI and military interrogators tried to elicit from him the same confessions that the CIA had obtained about the 9/11 plot, but by using only legal means of interrogation. By 2008, the Bush Administration believed that this so-called "Clean Team" had compiled sufficient evidence to charge Mohammed and the others with capital murder.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: The Department of Defense announced on August 9, 2007, that all fourteen of the "high-value detainees" who had been transferred to Guantanamo from the CIA's black sites, had been officially classified as "enemy combatants". Although judges Peter Brownback and Keith J. Allred had ruled two months earlier that only ""illegal" enemy combatants" could face military commissions, the Department of Defense waived the qualifier and said that all fourteen men could now face charges before Guantanamo military commissions.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: On March 19, 2007, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh's lawyers cited Mohammed's confession in defense of their client.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, also known as Sheikh Omar, was sentenced to death in a Pakistani court for the murder of Daniel Pearl. Omar's lawyers recently announced that they planned to use Mohammed's confession in an appeal. They had always acknowledged that Omar played a role in Pearl's murder, but argue that Mohammed was the actual murderer.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: In 2009, the French government decided to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed "in absentia" on terrorism charges with respect to the Ghriba synagogue bombing on the Tunisian island of Djerba in 2002, which killed 14 German tourists, five Tunisians and two French nationals. They intended to charge him along with the captured German national Christian Ganczarski and Tunisian Walid Nawar. French judges later decided to separate Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's case from those of Ganczarski and Nawar and try him separately at a later date.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: On February 11, 2008, the United States Department of Defense charged Mohammed, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali and Walid Bin Attash for the September 11, 2001 attacks under the military commission system, as established under the Military Commissions Act of 2006. They have reportedly been charged with the murder of almost 3000 people, terrorism and providing material support for terrorism and plane hijacking; as well as attacking civilian objects, intentionally causing serious bodily injury and destruction of property in violation of the law of war. The charges against them list 169 overt acts allegedly committed by the defendants in furtherance of the September 11 events.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: The charges include 2,973 individual counts of murder—one for each person killed in the 9/11 attacks. The prosecution is seeking the death penalty, which would require the unanimous agreement of the commission judges.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: Human rights groups, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Center for Constitutional Rights, and U.S. military defense lawyers have criticised the military commissions for lacking due process for a fair trial. Critics generally argue for the trials to be held in a federal district court, with defendants treated as criminal suspects, or by court-martial as a prisoner under the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit civilian trials for prisoners of war. Mohammed could face the death penalty under any of these systems.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: The case is progressing through the legal system. In August 2019 the trial date was tentatively set for January 11, 2021 by Judge W. Shane Cohen, but this date was postponed on December 18, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Mohammed's trial restarted on September 7, 2021.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: In "Boumediene v. Bush" (2008), the United States Supreme Court ruled that detainees had the right of access to US federal courts to petition under habeas corpus to challenge their detentions, and that the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 and the Military Commissions Act of 2006 were flawed. A revised Military Commissions Act was passed by Congress in 2009 to address court concerns.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: Mohammed, in a letter submitted to the court on July 26, 2019, communicated the willingness to help the 9/11 attack victims and their families in their lawsuit against Saudi Arabia. The mastermind is said to have demanded the elimination of his death sentence in the exchange for his cooperation.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: On September 9, 2009, photographs of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ammar al Baluchi were published on the Internet and widely in US and international media. Camp authorities have strict controls over the taking and distribution of images of the Guantanamo captives. Journalists and VIPs visiting Guantanamo are not allowed to take any pictures that show the captives' faces. Journalists may see "high value" captives such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed only when they are in the court room, where cameras are not allowed. But, on September 9, 2009, independent counter-terrorism researchers found new images of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his nephew Ammar al Baluchi on "jihadist websites". According to Carol Rosenberg, writing in "The Miami Herald": "The pictures were taken in July, said International Committee of the Red Cross spokesman Bernard Barrett, under an agreement with prison camp staff that lets Red Cross delegates photograph detainees and send photos to family members."


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: In November 2014, a Turkish manufacturer of over-the-counter hair removal cream was found to be using an image of a disheveled Mohammed in adverts for their product.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: In January 2014, a 36-page "nonviolence manifesto" written by KSM was declassified and released by the US government. The title is "Khalid Sheikh Mohammad's Statement to the Crusaders of the Military Commissions in Guantanamo." The document outlines 3 parts, but appears to be just the first section, describing "the path to happiness." The subject writes to his captors and appears interested in converting his wider audience to Islam. The author has utilized cultural criticisms, theological, and historical references to clarify a rationale for Westerners to follow Islam. The notes contain eight books with three Western authors and penciled initials with the date October 31, 2013.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: Khalid Sheikh Mohammad has participated as a witness in the trials of two alleged al-Qaeda members, Zacarias Moussaoui and Salim Hamdan. "Los Angeles Times" reporter Richard Serrano wrote:


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: "In 2006, his interrogation summaries were read aloud in the capital murder trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker, and Moussaoui was spared the death penalty. Two years later, different Mohammed statements were read in a military commission trial, or tribunal, that led to the release from Guantanamo Bay of Osama bin Laden's chauffeur, Salim Hamdan."


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: Stanly Cohen, an attorney for Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, requested to interview Mohammad, who they described as "the most qualified person alive" to assist in Abu Gaith's defense. Mohammad, through his attorney David Nevin, agreed to be interviewed, but only "in the absence of government personnel whether physically present or by listening or recording remotely."


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: Mohammed instead drafted a 14-page statement response to 451 interrogatories submitted by Cohen. In the response, Mohammad called Abu Ghaith, a "pious man" and "spellbinding speaker" who, to the best of his knowledge, did not play any military role in al-Qaeda operations and had no military training. Mohammed argued that Western foreign policy has been hypocritical in that it allowed for the rise of the Mujahideen in the Soviet War, but that Western media has since branded the Mujahideen "terrorists" or "foreign fighters". He further claimed that the Taliban's strict Islamic rule had restored security to Afghanistan in the 1990s. U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan ruled that neither Mohammad's statement nor testimony were relevant to Abu Ghaith's trial, and thus inadmissible.


title: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

text: The crime documentary series "Mugshots" released an episode, "KSM's Confessions" which tracks Khalid Sheikh Mohammed from New York to Pakistan.


title: David Mamet

text: David Alan Mamet (; born November 30, 1947) is an American playwright, filmmaker, and author. He won a Pulitzer Prize and received Tony nominations for his plays "Glengarry Glen Ross" (1984) and "Speed-the-Plow" (1988). He first gained critical acclaim for a trio of off-Broadway 1970s plays: "The Duck Variations", "Sexual Perversity in Chicago", and "American Buffalo". His plays "Race" and "The Penitent", respectively, opened on Broadway in 2009 and previewed off-Broadway in 2017.


title: David Mamet

text: Feature films that Mamet both wrote and directed include "House of Games" (1987), "Homicide" (1991), "The Spanish Prisoner" (1997), and his biggest commercial success, "Heist" (2001). His screenwriting credits include "The Postman Always Rings Twice" (1981), "The Verdict" (1982), "The Untouchables" (1987), "Hoffa" (1992), "Wag the Dog" (1997), and "Hannibal" (2001). Mamet himself wrote the screenplay for the 1992 adaptation of "Glengarry Glen Ross", and wrote and directed the 1994 adaptation of his play "Oleanna" (1992). He was the executive producer and a frequent writer for the TV show "The Unit" (2006–2009).


title: David Mamet

text: Mamet's books include: "On Directing Film" (1991), a commentary and dialogue about film-making; "The Old Religion" (1997), a novel about the lynching of Leo Frank; "Five Cities of Refuge: Weekly Reflections on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy" (2004), a Torah commentary with Rabbi Lawrence Kushner; "The Wicked Son" (2006), a study of Jewish self-hatred and antisemitism; "Bambi vs. Godzilla", a commentary on the movie business; "The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture" (2011), a commentary on cultural and political issues; and "Three War Stories" (2013), a trio of novellas about the physical and psychological effects of war.


title: David Mamet

text: Mamet was born in 1947 in Chicago to Lenore June (née Silver), a teacher, and Bernard Morris Mamet, a labor attorney. His family was Jewish. His paternal grandparents were Polish Jews. Mamet has said his parents were communists and described himself as a red diaper baby. One of his earliest jobs was as a busboy at Chicago's London House and The Second City. He also worked as an actor, editor for "Oui" magazine and as a cab-driver. He was educated at the progressive Francis W. Parker School and at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont. At the Chicago Public Library Foundation 20th anniversary fundraiser in 2006, though, Mamet announced "My alma mater is the Chicago Public Library. I got what little educational foundation I got in the third-floor reading room, under the tutelage of a Coca-Cola sign".


title: David Mamet

text: After a move to Chicago's North Side, Mamet encountered theater director Robert Sickinger, and began to work occasionally at Sickinger's Hull House Theatre. This represented the beginning of Mamet's lifelong involvement with the theater.


title: David Mamet

text: Mamet is a founding member of the Atlantic Theater Company; he first gained acclaim for a trio of off-Broadway plays in 1976, "The Duck Variations," "Sexual Perversity in Chicago," and "American Buffalo." He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1984 for "Glengarry Glen Ross," which received its first Broadway revival in the summer of 2005. His play "Race", which opened on Broadway on December 6, 2009 and featured James Spader, David Alan Grier, Kerry Washington, and Richard Thomas in the cast, received mixed reviews. His play "The Anarchist", starring Patti LuPone and Debra Winger, in her Broadway debut, opened on Broadway on November 13, 2012 in previews and was scheduled to close on December 16, 2012. His 2017 play "The Penitent" previewed off-Broadway on February 8, 2017.


title: David Mamet

text: In 2002, Mamet was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame. Mamet later received the PEN/Laura Pels Theater Award for Grand Master of American Theater in 2010.


title: David Mamet

text: In 2019 Mamet returned to the London West End with a new play, "Bitter Wheat", at the Garrick Theatre, starring John Malkovich.


title: David Mamet

text: Mamet's first produced screenplay was the 1981 production of "The Postman Always Rings Twice", based on James M. Cain's novel. He received an Academy Award nomination one year later for the 1982 legal drama, "The Verdict". He also wrote the screenplays for "The Untouchables" (1987), "Hoffa" (1992), "The Edge" (1997), "Wag the Dog" (1997), "Ronin" (1998), and "Hannibal" (2001). He received a second Academy Award nomination for "Wag the Dog".


title: David Mamet

text: In 1987, Mamet made his film directing debut with his screenplay "House of Games", which won Best Film and Best Screenplay awards at the 1987 Venice Film Festival and the Film of the Year in 1989 from the London Film Critics' Circle Awards. The film starred his then-wife, Lindsay Crouse, and many longtime stage associates and friends, including fellow Goddard College graduates. Mamet was quoted as saying, "It was my first film as a director and I needed support, so I stacked the deck." After "House of Games", Mamet later wrote and directed two more films focusing on the world of con artists, "The Spanish Prisoner" (1997) and "Heist" (2001). Among those films, "Heist" enjoyed the biggest commercial success.


title: David Mamet

text: Other films that Mamet both wrote and directed include: "Things Change" (1988), "Homicide" (1991) (nominated for the Palme d'Or at 1991 Cannes Film Festival and won a "Screenwriter of the Year" award for Mamet from the London Film Critics' Circle Awards), "Oleanna" (1994), "The Winslow Boy" (1999), "State and Main" (2000), "Spartan" (2004), "Redbelt" (2008), and the 2013 bio-pic TV movie "Phil Spector".


title: David Mamet

text: A feature-length film, a thriller titled "Blackbird", was intended for release in 2015, but is still in development.


title: David Mamet

text: When Mamet adapted his play for the 1992 film "Glengarry Glen Ross", he wrote an additional part (including the monologue "Coffee's for closers") for Alec Baldwin.


title: David Mamet

text: Mamet continues to work with an informal repertory company for his films, including Crouse, William H. Macy, Joe Mantegna, and Rebecca Pidgeon, as well as the aforementioned school friends.


title: David Mamet

text: Mamet rewrote the script for "Ronin" under the pseudonym "Richard Weisz" and turned in an early version of a script for "Malcolm X" which was rejected by director Spike Lee. Mamet also wrote an unproduced biopic script about Roscoe Arbuckle with Chris Farley intended to portray him. In 2000, Mamet directed a film version of "Catastrophe," a one-act play by Samuel Beckett featuring Harold Pinter and John Gielgud (in his final screen performance). In 2008, he wrote and directed the mixed martial arts movie "Redbelt," about a martial arts instructor tricked into fighting in a professional bout.


title: David Mamet

text: In "On Directing Film", Mamet advocates for a method of storytelling based on Eisenstein's montage theory, stating that the story should be told through the juxtaposition of uninflected images. This method relies heavily on the cut between scenes, and Mamet urges directors to eliminate as much narration as possible. Mamet asserts that directors should focus on getting the point of a scene across, rather than simply following a protagonist, or adding visually beautiful or intriguing shots. Films should create order from disorder in search of the objective.


title: David Mamet

text: Mamet published the essay collection "Writing in Restaurants" in 1986, followed by the poetry collection "The Hero Pony" in 1990. He has also published a series of short plays, monologues and four novels, "The Village" (1994), "The Old Religion" (1997), "Wilson: A Consideration of the Sources" (2000), and "Chicago" (2018). He has written several non-fiction texts, and children's stories, including "True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor "(1997). In 2004 he published a lauded version of the classical Faust story, "Faustus", however, when the play was staged in San Francisco during the spring of 2004, it was not well received by critics. On May 1, 2010, Mamet released a graphic novel "The Trials of Roderick Spode (The Human Ant)".


title: David Mamet

text: Mamet detailed his conversion from modern liberalism to "a reformed liberal" in "The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture" in 2011. Mamet published "Three War Stories", a collection of novellas, in 2013 ; the novel "The Diary of a Porn Star by Priscilla Wriston-Ranger: As Told to David Mamet With an Afterword by Mr. Mamet" in 2019; and the political commentary "Recessional: The Death of Free Speech and the Cost of a Free Lunch" in 2022.


title: David Mamet

text: Mamet wrote one episode of "Hill Street Blues", "A Wasted Weekend", that aired in 1987. His then-wife, Lindsay Crouse, appeared in numerous episodes (including that one) as Officer McBride. Mamet is also the creator, producer and frequent writer of the television series "The Unit", where he wrote a well-circulated memo to the writing staff. He directed a third-season episode of "The Shield" with Shawn Ryan. In 2007, Mamet directed two television commercials for Ford Motor Company. The two 30-second ads featured the Ford Edge and were filmed in Mamet's signature style of fast-paced dialogue and clear, simple imagery. Mamet's sister, Lynn, is a producer and writer for television shows, such as "The Unit" and "Law & Order".


title: David Mamet

text: Mamet has contributed several dramas to BBC Radio through Jarvis & Ayres Productions, including an adaptation of "Glengarry Glen Ross" for BBC Radio 3 and new dramas for BBC Radio 4. The comedy "Keep Your Pantheon (or On the Whole I'd Rather Be in Mesopotamia)" was aired in 2007. "The Christopher Boy's Communion" was another Jarvis & Ayres production, first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on March 8, 2021.


title: David Mamet

text: The papers of David Mamet were sold to the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin in 2007 and first opened for research in 2009. The growing collection consists mainly of manuscripts and related production materials for most of his plays, films, and other writings, but also includes his personal journals from 1966 to 2005. In 2015, the Ransom Center secured a second major addition to Mamet's papers, including more recent works. Additional materials relating to Mamet and his career can be found in the Ransom Center's collections of Robert De Niro, Mel Gussow, Tom Stoppard, Sam Shepard, Paul Schrader, Don DeLillo, and John Russell Brown.


title: David Mamet

text: Mamet's style of writing dialogue, marked by a cynical, street-smart edge, precisely crafted for effect, is so distinctive that it has come to be called "Mamet speak." Mamet himself has criticized his (and other writers') tendency to write "pretty" at the expense of sound, logical plots. When asked how he developed his style for writing dialogue, Mamet said, "In my family, in the days prior to television, we liked to while away the evenings by making ourselves miserable, based solely on our ability to speak the language viciously. That's probably where my ability was honed."


title: David Mamet

text: One instance of Mamet's dialogue style can be found in "Glengarry Glen Ross", in which two down-on-their-luck real estate salesmen are considering stealing from their employer's office. George Aaronow and Dave Moss equivocate on the meaning of "talk" and "speak", turning language and meaning to deceptive purposes:


title: David Mamet

text: Mamet dedicated "Glengarry Glen Ross" to Harold Pinter, who was instrumental in its being first staged at the Royal National Theatre, (London) in 1983, and whom Mamet has acknowledged as an influence on its success, and on his other work.


title: David Mamet

text: Mamet's plays have frequently sparked debate and controversy. Following a 1992 staging of "Oleanna", a play in which a college student accuses her professor of trying to rape her, a critic reported that the play divided the audience by gender and recounted that "couples emerged screaming at each other".


title: David Mamet

text: In his 2014 book "David Mamet and Male Friendship", Arthur Holmberg examined Mamet's portrayal of male friendships, especially focusing on the contradictions and ambiguities of male bonding as dramatized in Mamet's plays and films.


title: David Mamet

text: Mamet and actress Lindsay Crouse married in 1977 and divorced in 1990. The couple have two children, Willa and Zosia. Willa was a professional photographer and is now a singer/songwriter; Zosia is an actress. Mamet has been married to actress and singer-songwriter Rebecca Pidgeon since 1991, and they have two children, Clara and Noah. , Mamet and Pidgeon live in Santa Monica, California.


title: David Mamet

text: In 2005, Mamet became a contributing blogger for "The Huffington Post", drawing satirical cartoons with themes including political strife in Israel. In a 2008 essay at "The Village Voice" titled "Why I Am No Longer a 'Brain-Dead Liberal'" he discussed how his political views had shifted from liberalism to conservatism. In interviews, Mamet has highlighted his agreement with free market theorists such as Friedrich Hayek, the historian Paul Johnson, and economist Thomas Sowell, whom Mamet called "one of our greatest minds". In 2022, Mamet declined to explicitly label himself a Republican, but described himself as a conservative who "would like to conserve those things I grew up with: the love of family, the love of the country, love of service, love of God, love of community".


title: David Mamet

text: During promotion of a book, Mamet said British people had "a taint of anti-semitism," claiming they "want to give [Israel] away to some people whose claim is rather dubious." In the same interview, Mamet went on to say that "there are famous dramatists and novelists [in the UK] whose works are full of anti-Semitic filth." He refused to give examples because of British libel laws (the interview was conducted in New York City for the "Financial Times"). He is known for his pro-Israel positions; in his book "The Secret Knowledge" he claimed that "Israelis would like to live in peace within their borders; the Arabs would like to kill them all."


title: David Mamet

text: Mamet endorsed Republican Mitt Romney for president in 2012, and wrote an article for "The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles" imploring fellow Jewish Americans to vote for Romney.


title: David Mamet

text: In an essay for "Newsweek", published on January 29, 2013, Mamet argued against gun control laws: "It was intended to guard us against this inevitable decay of government that the Constitution was written. Its purpose was and is not to enthrone a Government superior to an imperfect and confused electorate, but to protect us from such a government."


title: David Mamet

text: Mamet has described the NFL anthem protests as "absolutely fucking despicable". In a 2020 interview, he described Donald Trump as a "great president" and supported his re-election. After Trump was defeated for re-election, Mamet appeared to endorse false claims that the election had been illegitimate in his 2022 book "Recessional: The Death of Free Speech and the Cost of a Free Lunch", though shortly after its publication, he said he "misspoke" on the subject.


title: David Mamet

text: In 2022, Mamet made comments in support of Florida House Bill 1557, formally dubbed Parental Rights in Education and branded the "Don't Say Gay" bill by its critics, which places restrictions on the ability of public school teachers in the state to discuss sexual orientation and gender identity with children in kindergarten through third grade. In an interview with Fox News, Mamet claimed that the law was necessary because teachers "are abusing [children] mentally and using sex to do so", further alleging that "teachers are inclined, particularly men because men are predators, to pedophilia".


title: Rococo

text: Rococo (, ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, and "trompe-l'œil" frescoes to create surprise and the illusion of motion and drama. It is often described as the final expression of the Baroque movement.


title: Rococo

text: The Rococo style began in France in the 1730s as a reaction against the more formal and geometric Louis XIV style. It was known as the "style Rocaille", or "Rocaille style". It soon spread to other parts of Europe, particularly northern Italy, Austria, southern Germany, Central Europe and Russia. It also came to influence the other arts, particularly sculpture, furniture, silverware, glassware, painting, music, and theatre. Although originally a secular style primarily used for interiors of private residences, the Rococo had a spiritual aspect to it which led to its widespread use in church interiors, particularly in Central Europe, Portugal, and South America.


title: Rococo

text: The word "rococo" was first used as a humorous variation of the word "rocaille". Rocaille was originally a method of decoration, using pebbles, seashells, and cement, which was often used to decorate grottoes and fountains since the Renaissance. In the late 17th and early 18th century, rocaille became the term for a kind of decorative motif or ornament that appeared in the late Style Louis XIV, in the form of a seashell interlaced with acanthus leaves. In 1736 the designer and jeweler Jean Mondon published the "Premier Livre de forme rocquaille et cartel", a collection of designs for ornaments of furniture and interior decoration. It was the first appearance in print of the term "rocaille" to designate the style. The carved or moulded seashell motif was combined with palm leaves or twisting vines to decorate doorways, furniture, wall panels and other architectural elements.


title: Rococo

text: The term "rococo" was first used in print in 1825 to describe decoration which was "out of style and old-fashioned". It was used in 1828 for decoration "which belonged to the style of the 18th century, overloaded with twisting ornaments". In 1829, the author Stendhal described rococo as "the rocaille style of the 18th century".


title: Rococo

text: In the 19th century, the term was used to describe architecture or music which was excessively ornamental. Since the mid-19th century, the term has been accepted by art historians. While there is still some debate about the historical significance of the style, Rococo is now often considered as a distinct period in the development of European art.


title: Rococo

text: Rococo features exuberant decoration, with an abundance of curves, counter-curves, undulations and elements modeled on nature. The exteriors of Rococo buildings are often simple, while the interiors are entirely dominated by their ornament. The style was highly theatrical, designed to impress and awe at first sight. Floor plans of churches were often complex, featuring interlocking ovals; In palaces, grand stairways became centrepieces, and offered different points of view of the decoration. The main ornaments of Rococo are: asymmetrical shells, acanthus and other leaves, birds, bouquets of flowers, fruit, musical instruments, angels and Chinoiserie (pagodas, dragons, monkeys, bizarre flowers and Chinese people).


title: Rococo

text: The style often integrated painting, moulded stucco, and wood carving, and "quadratura", or illusionist ceiling paintings, which were designed to give the impression that those entering the room were looking up at the sky, where cherubs and other figures were gazing down at them. Materials used included stucco, either painted or left white; combinations of different coloured woods (usually oak, beech or walnut); lacquered wood in the Japanese style, ornament of gilded bronze, and marble tops of commodes or tables. The intent was to create an impression of surprise, awe and wonder on first view.


title: Rococo

text: The "Rocaille" style, or French Rococo, appeared in Paris during the reign of Louis XV, and flourished between about 1723 and 1759. The style was used particularly in salons, a new style of room designed to impress and entertain guests. The most prominent example was the salon of the Princess in Hôtel de Soubise in Paris, designed by Germain Boffrand and Charles-Joseph Natoire (1735–40). The characteristics of French Rococo included exceptional artistry, especially in the complex frames made for mirrors and paintings, which were sculpted in plaster and often gilded; and the use of vegetal forms (vines, leaves, flowers) intertwined in complex designs. The furniture also featured sinuous curves and vegetal designs. The leading furniture designers and craftsmen in the style included Juste-Aurele Meissonier, Charles Cressent, and Nicolas Pineau.


title: Rococo

text: The Rocaille style lasted in France until the mid-18th century, and while it became more curving and vegetal, it never achieved the extravagant exuberance of the Rococo in Bavaria, Austria and Italy. The discoveries of Roman antiquities beginning in 1738 at Herculaneum and especially at Pompeii in 1748 turned French architecture in the direction of the more symmetrical and less flamboyant neo-classicism.


title: Rococo

text: Artists in Italy, particularly Venice, also produced an exuberant rococo style. Venetian commodes imitated the curving lines and carved ornament of the French rocaille, but with a particular Venetian variation; the pieces were painted, often with landscapes or flowers or scenes from Guardi or other painters, or Chinoiserie, against a blue or green background, matching the colours of the Venetian school of painters whose work decorated the salons. Notable decorative painters included Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, who painted ceilings and murals of both churches and palazzos, and Giovanni Battista Crosato who painted the ballroom ceiling of the Ca Rezzonico in the quadraturo manner, giving the illusion of three dimensions. Tiepelo travelled to Germany with his son during 1752–1754, decorating the ceilings of the Würzburg Residence, one of the major landmarks of the Bavarian rococo. An earlier celebrated Venetian painter was Giovanni Battista Piazzetta, who painted several notable church ceilings.


title: Rococo

text: The Venetian Rococo also featured exceptional glassware, particularly Murano glass, often engraved and coloured, which was exported across Europe. Works included multicolour chandeliers and mirrors with extremely ornate frames.


title: Rococo

text: In church construction, especially in the southern German-Austrian region, gigantic spatial creations are sometimes created for practical reasons alone, which, however, do not appear monumental, but are characterized by a unique fusion of architecture, painting, stucco, etc., often completely eliminating the boundaries between the art genres, and are characterised by a light-filled weightlessness, festive cheerfulness and movement.


title: Rococo

text: The Rococo decorative style reached its summit in southern Germany and Austria from the 1730s until the 1770s. There it dominates the church landscape to this day and is deeply anchored there in popular culture. It was first introduced from France through the publications and works of French architects and decorators, including the sculptor Claude III Audran, the interior designer Gilles-Marie Oppenordt, the architect Germain Boffrand, the sculptor Jean Mondon, and the draftsman and engraver Pierre Lepautre. Their work had an important influence on the German Rococo style, but does not reach the level of buildings in southern Germany.


title: Rococo

text: German architects adapted the Rococo style but made it far more asymmetric and loaded with more ornate decoration than the French original. The German style was characterized by an explosion of forms that cascaded down the walls. It featured molding formed into curves and counter-curves, twisting and turning patterns, ceilings and walls with no right angles, and stucco foliage which seemed to be creeping up the walls and across the ceiling. The decoration was often gilded or silvered to give it contrast with the white or pale pastel walls.


title: Rococo

text: The Belgian-born architect and designer François de Cuvilliés was one of the first to create a Rococo building in Germany, with the pavilion of Amalienburg in Munich, (1734-1739), inspired by the pavilions of the Trianon and Marly in France. It was built as a hunting lodge, with a platform on the roof for shooting pheasants. The Hall of Mirrors in the interior, by the painter and stucco sculptor Johann Baptist Zimmermann, was far more exuberant than any French Rococo.


title: Rococo

text: Another notable example of the early German Rococo is Würzburg Residence (1737–1744) constructed for the Prince-Bishop of Würzburg by Balthasar Neumann. Neumann had travelled to Paris and consulted with the French rocaille decorative artists Germain Boffrand and Robert de Cotte. While the exterior was in more sober Baroque style, the interior, particularly the stairways and ceilings, was much lighter and decorative. The Prince-Bishop imported the Italian Rococo painter Giovanni Battista Tiepolo in 1750–1753 to create a mural over the top of the three-level ceremonial stairway. Neumann described the interior of the residence as "a theatre of light". The stairway was also the central element in a residence Neumann built at the Augustusburg Palace in Brühl (1743–1748). In that building the stairway led the visitors up through a stucco fantasy of paintings, sculpture, ironwork and decoration, with surprising views at every turn.


title: Rococo

text: In the 1740s and 1750s, a number of notable pilgrimage churches were constructed in Bavaria, with interiors decorated in a distinctive variant of the rococo style. One of the most notable examples is the Wieskirche (1745–1754) designed by Dominikus Zimmermann. Like most of the Bavarian pilgrimage churches, the exterior is very simple, with pastel walls, and little ornament. Entering the church the visitor encounters an astonishing theatre of movement and light. It features an oval-shaped sanctuary, and a deambulatory in the same form, filling in the church with light from all sides. The white walls contrasted with columns of blue and pink stucco in the choir, and the domed ceiling surrounded by plaster angels below a dome representing the heavens crowded with colourful Biblical figures. Other notable pilgrimage churches include the Basilica of the Fourteen Holy Helpers by Balthasar Neumann (1743–1772).


title: Rococo

text: Johann Michael Fischer was the architect of Ottobeuren Abbey (1748–1766), another Bavarian Rococo landmark. The church features, like much of the rococo architecture in Germany, a remarkable contrast between the regularity of the facade and the overabundance of decoration in the interior.


title: Rococo

text: In Great Britain, rococo was called the "French taste" and had less influence on design and the decorative arts than in continental Europe, although its influence was felt in such areas as silverwork, porcelain, and silks. William Hogarth helped develop a theoretical foundation for Rococo beauty. Though not mentioning rococo by name, he argued in his "Analysis of Beauty" (1753) that the undulating lines and S-curves prominent in Rococo were the basis for grace and beauty in art or nature (unlike the straight line or the circle in Classicism).


title: Rococo

text: Rococo was slow in arriving in England. Before entering the Rococo, British furniture for a time followed the neoclassical Palladian model under designer William Kent, who designed for Lord Burlington and other important patrons of the arts. Kent travelled to Italy with Lord Burlington between 1712 and 1720, and brought back many models and ideas from Palladio. He designed the furniture for Hampton Court Palace (1732), Lord Burlington's Chiswick House (1729), London, Thomas Coke's Holkham Hall, Norfolk, Robert Walpole's pile at Houghton, for Devonshire House in London, and at Rousham.


title: Rococo

text: Mahogany made its appearance in England in about 1720, and immediately became popular for furniture, along with walnut wood. The Rococo began to make an appearance in England between 1740 and 1750. The furniture of Thomas Chippendale was the closest to the Rococo style, In 1754 he published "Gentleman's and Cabinet-makers' directory", a catalogue of designs for rococo, "chinoiserie" and even Gothic furniture, which achieved wide popularity, going through three editions. Unlike French designers, Chippendale did not employ marquetry or inlays in his furniture. The predominant designer of inlaid furniture were Vile and Cob, the cabinet-makers for King George III. Another important figure in British furniture was Thomas Johnson, who in 1761, very late in the period, published a catalogue of Rococo furniture designs. These include furnishings based on rather fantastic Chinese and Indian motifs, including a canopy bed crowned by a Chinese pagoda (now in the Victoria and Albert Museum).


title: Rococo

text: The Russian Empress Catherine the Great was another admirer of the Rococo; The Golden Cabinet of the Chinese Palace in the palace complex of Oranienbaum near Saint Petersburg, designed by the Italian Antonio Rinaldi, is an example of the Russian Rococo.


title: Rococo

text: Frederician Rococo is a form of Rococo which developed in Prussia during the reign of Frederick the Great and combined influences from France, Germany (especially Saxony) and the Netherlands. Its most famous adherent was the architect Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff. Furthermore, the painter Antoine Pesne and even King Frederick himself influenced Knobelsdorff's designs. Famous buildings in the Frederican style include Sanssouci Palace, the Potsdam City Palace, and parts of Charlottenburg Palace.


title: Rococo

text: The art of Boucher and other painters of the period, with its emphasis on decorative mythology and gallantry, soon inspired a reaction, and a demand for more "noble" themes. While the Rococo continued in Germany and Austria, the French Academy in Rome began to teach the classic style. This was confirmed by the nomination of De Troy as director of the Academy in 1738, and then in 1751 by Charles-Joseph Natoire.


title: Rococo

text: Madame de Pompadour, the mistress of Louis XV contributed to the decline of the Rococo style. In 1750 she sent her brother, Abel-François Poisson de Vandières, on a two-year mission to study artistic and archeological developments in Italy. He was accompanied by several artists, including the engraver Charles-Nicolas Cochin and the architect Soufflot. They returned to Paris with a passion for classical art. Vandiéres became the Marquis of Marigny, and was named director general of the King's Buildings. He turned official French architecture toward the neoclassical. Cochin became an important art critic; he denounced the "petit style" of Boucher, and called for a grand style with a new emphasis on antiquity and nobility in the academies of painting and architecture.


title: Rococo

text: The beginning of the end for Rococo came in the early 1760s as figures like Voltaire and Jacques-François Blondel began to voice their criticism of the superficiality and degeneracy of the art. Blondel decried the "ridiculous jumble of shells, dragons, reeds, palm-trees and plants" in contemporary interiors.


title: Rococo

text: By 1785, Rococo had passed out of fashion in France, replaced by the order and seriousness of Neoclassical artists like Jacques-Louis David. In Germany, late 18th-century Rococo was ridiculed as "Zopf und Perücke" ("pigtail and periwig"), and this phase is sometimes referred to as "Zopfstil". Rococo remained popular in certain German provincial states and in Italy, until the second phase of neoclassicism, "Empire style", arrived with Napoleonic governments and swept Rococo away.


title: Rococo

text: The ornamental style called "rocaille" emerged in France between 1710 and 1750, mostly during the regency and reign of Louis XV; the style was also called "Louis Quinze". Its principal characteristics were picturesque detail, curves and counter-curves, asymmetry, and a theatrical exuberance. On the walls of new Paris salons, the twisting and winding designs, usually made of gilded or painted stucco, wound around the doorways and mirrors like vines. One of the earliest examples was the Hôtel Soubise in Paris (1704–05), with its famous oval salon decorated with paintings by Boucher, and Charles-Joseph Natoire.


title: Rococo

text: The best known French furniture designer of the period was Juste-Aurèle Meissonnier (1695–1750), who was also a sculptor, painter. and goldsmith for the royal household. He held the title of official designer to the Chamber and Cabinet of Louis XV. His work is well known today because of the enormous number of engravings made of his work which popularized the style throughout Europe. He designed works for the royal families of Poland and Portugal.


title: Rococo

text: Italy was another place where the Rococo flourished, both in its early and later phases. Craftsmen in Rome, Milan and Venice all produced lavishly decorated furniture and decorative items.


title: Rococo

text: The sculpted decoration included fleurettes, palmettes, seashells, and foliage, carved in wood. The most extravagant rocaille forms were found in the consoles, tables designed to stand against walls. The Commodes, or chests, which had first appeared under Louis XIV, were richly decorated with rocaille ornament made of gilded bronze. They were made by master craftsmen including Jean-Pierre Latz and also featured marquetry of different-coloured woods, sometimes placed in draughtsboard cubic patterns, made with light and dark woods. The period also saw the arrival of Chinoiserie, often in the form of lacquered and gilded commodes, called "falcon de Chine" of "Vernis Martin", after the ebenist who introduced the technique to France. Ormolu, or gilded bronze, was used by master craftsmen including Jean-Pierre Latz. Latz made a particularly ornate clock mounted atop a cartonnier for Frederick the Great for his palace in Potsdam. Pieces of imported Chinese porcelain were often mounted in ormolu (gilded bronze) rococo settings for display on tables or consoles in salons. Other craftsmen imitated the Japanese art of lacquered furniture, and produced commodes with Japanese motifs.


title: Rococo

text: British Rococo tended to be more restrained. Thomas Chippendale's furniture designs kept the curves and feel, but stopped short of the French heights of whimsy. The most successful exponent of British Rococo was probably Thomas Johnson, a gifted carver and furniture designer working in London in the mid-18th century.


title: Rococo

text: Elements of the "Rocaille" style appeared in the work of some French painters, including a taste for the picturesque in details; curves and counter-curves; and dissymmetry which replaced the movement of the baroque with exuberance, though the French "rocaille" never reached the extravagance of the Germanic rococo. The leading proponent was Antoine Watteau, particularly in "Pilgrimage on the Isle of Cythera" (1717), Louvre, in a genre called "Fête Galante" depicting scenes of young nobles gathered together to celebrate in a pastoral setting. Watteau died in 1721 at the age of thirty-seven, but his work continued to have influence through the rest of the century. The "Pilgrimage to Cythera" painting was purchased by Frederick the Great of Prussia in 1752 or 1765 to decorate his palace of Charlottenburg in Berlin.


title: Rococo

text: The successor of Watteau and the "Féte Galante" in decorative painting was François Boucher (1703–1770), the favorite painter of Madame de Pompadour. His work included the sensual "Toilette de Venus" (1746), which became one of the best known examples of the style. Boucher participated in all of the genres of the time, designing tapestries, models for porcelain sculpture, set decorations for the Paris opera and "opera-comique", and decor for the Fair of Saint-Laurent. Other important painters of the "Fête Galante" style included Nicolas Lancret and Jean-Baptiste Pater. The style particularly influenced François Lemoyne, who painted the lavish decoration of the ceiling of the Salon of Hercules at the Palace of Versailles, completed in 1735. Paintings with fétes gallant and mythological themes by Boucher, Pierre-Charles Trémolières and Charles-Joseph Natoire decorated the famous salon of the Hôtel Soubise in Paris (1735–40). Other Rococo painters include: Jean François de Troy (1679–1752), Jean-Baptiste van Loo (1685–1745), his two sons Louis-Michel van Loo (1707–1771) and Charles-Amédée-Philippe van Loo (1719–1795), his younger brother Charles-André van Loo (1705–1765), Nicolas Lancret (1690–1743), and Jean Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806).


title: Rococo

text: In Austria and Southern Germany, Italian painting had the largest effect on the Rococo style. The Venetian painter Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, assisted by his son, Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, was invited to paint frescoes for the Würzburg Residence (1720–1744). The most prominent painter of Bavarian rococo churches was Johann Baptist Zimmermann, who painted the ceiling of the Wieskirche (1745–1754).


title: Rococo

text: Rococo sculpture was theatrical, colourful and dynamic, giving a sense of movement in every direction. It was most commonly found in the interiors of churches, usually closely integrated with painting and the architecture. Religious sculpture followed the Italian baroque style, as exemplified in the theatrical altarpiece of the Karlskirche in Vienna.


title: Rococo

text: Early Rococo or Rocaille sculpture in France sculpture was lighter and offered more movement than the classical style of Louis XIV. It was encouraged in particular by Madame de Pompadour, mistress of Louis XV, who commissioned many works for her chateaux and gardens. The sculptor Edmé Bouchardon represented Cupid engaged in carving his darts of love from the club of Hercules. Rococo figures also crowded the later fountains at Versailles, such as the Fountain of Neptune by Lambert-Sigisbert Adam and Nicolas-Sebastien Adam (1740). Based on their success at Versailles, they were invited to Prussia by Frederick the Great to create fountain sculpture for Sanssouci Palace, Prussia (1740s).


title: Rococo

text: Étienne-Maurice Falconet (1716–1791) was another leading French sculptor during the period. Falconet was most famous for his statue of Peter the Great on horseback in St. Petersburg, but he also created a series of smaller works for wealthy collectors, which could be reproduced in a series in terracotta or cast in bronze. The French sculptors, Jean-Louis Lemoyne, Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, Louis-Simon Boizot, Michel Clodion, Lambert-Sigisbert Adam and Jean-Baptiste Pigalle all produced sculpture in series for collectors.


title: Rococo

text: In Italy, Antonio Corradini was among the leading sculptors of the Rococo style. A Venetian, he travelled around Europe, working for Peter the Great in St. Petersburg, for the imperial courts in Austria and Naples. He preferred sentimental themes and made several skilled works of women with faces covered by veils, one of which is now in the Louvre.


title: Rococo

text: The most elaborate examples of rococo sculpture were found in Spain, Austria and southern Germany, in the decoration of palaces and churches. The sculpture was closely integrated with the architecture; it was impossible to know where one stopped and the other began. In the Belvedere Palace in Vienna, (1721-1722), the vaulted ceiling of the Hall of the Atlantes is held up on the shoulders of muscular figures designed by Johann Lukas von Hildebrandt. The portal of the Palace of the Marquis of Dos Aguas in Valencia (1715-1776) was completely drenched in sculpture carved in marble, from designs by Hipolito Rovira Brocandel.


title: Rococo

text: The "El Transparente" altar, in the major chapel of Toledo Cathedral is a towering sculpture of polychrome marble and gilded stucco, combined with paintings, statues and symbols. It was made by Narciso Tomé (1721–32), Its design allows light to pass through, and in changing light it seems to move.


title: Rococo

text: A new form of small-scale sculpture appeared, the porcelain figure, or small group of figures, initially replacing sugar sculptures on grand dining room tables, but soon popular for placing on mantelpieces and furniture. The number of European factories grew steadily through the century, and some made porcelain that the expanding middle classes could afford. The amount of colourful overglaze decoration used on them also increased. They were usually modelled by artists who had trained in sculpture. Common subjects included figures from the commedia dell'arte, city street vendors, lovers and figures in fashionable clothes, and pairs of birds.


title: Rococo

text: Johann Joachim Kändler was the most important modeller of Meissen porcelain, the earliest European factory, which remained the most important until about 1760. The Swiss-born German sculptor Franz Anton Bustelli produced a wide variety of colourful figures for the Nymphenburg Porcelain Manufactory in Bavaria, which were sold throughout Europe. The French sculptor Étienne-Maurice Falconet (1716–1791) followed this example. While also making large-scale works, he became director of the Sevres Porcelain manufactory and produced small-scale works, usually about love and gaiety, for production in series.


title: Rococo

text: A Rococo period existed in music history, although it is not as well known as the earlier Baroque and later Classical forms. The Rococo music style itself developed out of baroque music both in France, where the new style was referred to as "style galant" ("gallant" or "elegant" style), and in Germany, where it was referred to as "empfindsamer Stil" ("sensitive style"). It can be characterized as light, intimate music with extremely elaborate and refined forms of ornamentation. Exemplars include Jean Philippe Rameau, Louis-Claude Daquin and François Couperin in France; in Germany, the style's main proponents were C. P. E. Bach and Johann Christian Bach, two sons of J.S. Bach.


title: Rococo

text: In the second half of the 18th century, a reaction against the Rococo style occurred, primarily against its perceived overuse of ornamentation and decoration. Led by Christoph Willibald Gluck, this reaction ushered in the Classical era. By the early 19th century, Catholic opinion had turned against the suitability of the style for ecclesiastical contexts because it was "in no way conducive to sentiments of devotion".


title: Rococo

text: Russian composer of the Romantic era Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky wrote The "Variations on a Rococo Theme", Op. 33, for cello and orchestra in 1877. Although the theme is not Rococo in origin, it is written in Rococo style.


title: Rococo

text: Rococo fashion was based on extravagance, elegance, refinement and decoration. Women's fashion of the seventeenth-century was contrasted by the fashion of the eighteenth-century, which was ornate and sophisticated, the true style of Rococo.


title: Rococo

text: These fashions spread beyond the royal court into the salons and cafés of the ascendant bourgeoisie. The exuberant, playful, elegant style of decoration and design that we now know to be 'Rococo' was then known as "le style rocaille, le style moderne, le gout."


title: Rococo

text: A style that appeared in the early eighteenth-century was the "robe volante", a flowing gown, that became popular towards the end of King Louis XIV's reign. This gown had the features of a bodice with large pleats flowing down the back to the ground over a rounded petticoat. The colour palette was rich, dark fabrics accompanied by elaborate, heavy design features. After the death of Louis XIV the clothing styles began to change. The fashion took a turn to a lighter, more frivolous style, transitioning from the baroque period to the well-known style of Rococo. The later period was known for their pastel colours, more revealing frocks, and the plethora of frills, ruffles, bows, and lace as trims. Shortly after the typical women's Rococo gown was introduced, "robe à la Française," a gown with a tight bodice that had a low cut neckline, usually with a large ribbon bows down the centre front, wide panniers, and was lavishly trimmed in large amounts of lace, ribbon, and flowers.


title: Rococo

text: The "Watteau pleats" also became more popular, named after the painter Jean-Antoine Watteau, who painted the details of the gowns down to the stitches of lace and other trimmings with immense accuracy. Later, the "'pannier'" and "'mantua"' became fashionable around 1718. They were wide hoops under the dress to extend the hips out sideways and they soon became a staple in formal wear. This gave the Rococo period the iconic dress of wide hips combined with the large amount of decoration on the garments. Wide panniers were worn for special occasions, and could reach up to 16 feet (4.8 metres) in diameter, and smaller hoops were worn for the everyday settings. These features originally came from seventeenth-century Spanish fashion, known as "guardainfante", initially designed to hide the pregnant stomach, then reimagined later as the pannier. 1745 became the Golden Age of the Rococo with the introduction of a more exotic, oriental culture in France called "a la turque". This was made popular by Louis XV's mistress, Madame Pompadour, who commissioned the artist, Charles Andre Van Loo, to paint her as a Turkish sultana.


title: Rococo

text: In the 1760s, a style of less formal dresses emerged and one of these was the "polonaise", with inspiration taken from Poland. It was shorter than the French dress, allowing the underskirt and ankles to be seen, which made it easier to move around in. Another dress that came into fashion was the "robe a l'anglais", which included elements inspired by the males' fashion; a short jacket, broad lapels and long sleeves. It also had a snug bodice, a full skirt without panniers but still a little long in the back to form a small train, and often some type of lace kerchief worn around the neck. Another piece was the 'redingote', halfway between a cape and an overcoat.


title: Rococo

text: Accessories were also important to all women during this time, as they added to the opulence and the decor of the body to match their gowns. At any official ceremony ladies were required to cover their hands and arms with gloves if their clothes were sleeveless.


title: Holly Madison

text: Holly Madison (born Holly Sue Cullen; December 23, 1979) is an American television personality, best known as a former girlfriend of Hugh Hefner and for her appearance in the reality television show "The Girls Next Door". She also starred in her own reality series, "Holly's World", which ran from 2009 to 2011. She has released two books, "Down the Rabbit Hole" in 2015, about her life in the Playboy Mansion and her relationship with Hefner, and "The Vegas Diaries: Romance, Rolling the Dice, and the Road to Reinvention" in 2016.


title: Holly Madison

text: Madison was born Holly Sue Cullen in Astoria, Oregon. At age two, she moved with her family to Craig, Alaska, on Prince of Wales Island. When she was in middle school, her family returned to St. Helens, Oregon. She later attended Portland State University for two years, majoring in theater and psychology. Afterward, Madison moved to Los Angeles and attended Loyola Marymount University.


title: Holly Madison

text: To afford her college tuition, Madison competed to become a Hawaiian Tropic model and worked as a waitress at Hooters. Her appearance at these venues led to invitations to the Playboy Mansion and at the age of 21, after more than a year of such visits, Madison asked permission from Hugh Hefner and was eventually allowed to move in at the mansion.


title: Holly Madison

text: Facing credit card debt and potential homelessness, in August 2001, Madison moved into the Playboy Mansion and officially became one of Hugh Hefner's girlfriends. Hefner controlled her finances, enforced a strict schedule and curfew, and denied her opportunities to earn income outside the mansion. In February 2002, after all but two of his girlfriends left, Madison became his "#1 Girl". During her time with Hefner, Madison stated that she wanted to marry him and have his children. However, in an interview at the "Playmate of the Year" luncheon in May 2008, Hefner said, "I love Holly very much and I think we're going to be together the rest of my life, but marriage isn't part of my puzzle. It's not a personal thing; I just haven't had much luck with marriages." Reflecting on her time at the mansion, Madison has said her feelings for Hefner were attributable to Stockholm syndrome.


title: Holly Madison

text: On October 7, 2008, Madison announced that her relationship with Hefner had ended, but that she, Bridget Marquardt and Kendra Wilkinson were "still filming stuff together". Hefner confirmed the breakup, saying, "If Holly says it's over, I guess it's over". Madison was later among the former Playmates who spoke out in the docuseries "Secrets of Playboy".


title: Holly Madison

text: "The Girls Next Door" was an "E! Network" show following life of Madison and others at the Playboy Mansion. Although Madison was never a Playboy Playmate, "Playboy" published a nude pictorial of Madison with her "The Girls Next Door" costars in the November 2005 issue. The women were featured again on the covers of the September 2006, March 2008, and February 2009 issues. During seasons three and four, Madison was shown working at the Playboy studios as an intern and later a junior photo editor. She also helped design and put together "The Girls Next Door" calendars. In February 2009, with the ending of the sixth season she quit working for the company altogether due to her split from Hefner making her position "awkward".


title: Holly Madison

text: Madison was chosen to replace Jewel on "Dancing with the Stars" and was partnered with Dmitry Chaplin. Madison was injured while practicing and Madison and Chaplin were voted off.


title: Holly Madison

text: In May 2009, Madison and Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman led a Guinness World Record-breaking "largest bikini parade ever". According to the "Las Vegas Sun", "The politician and the former Playboy house bunny joined forces to usher in the city's summer swimsuit season..." in an event timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign. The 281 parade participants broke the prior record of 250. The mark has subsequently been eclipsed by events in the Cayman Islands (331), and Brisbane, Australia (357).


title: Holly Madison

text: Madison starred in the burlesque show "Peepshow" at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas. She was brought in to replace Kelly Monaco after Monaco's three-month contract was up. Madison was likewise initially signed to a three-month contract, but due to the show's success, it was eventually extended to a full year.


title: Holly Madison

text: Madison starred in her own reality show, "Holly's World", which revolved around her life at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas. "It's all good-natured and not mean like other reality shows", Madison said of her show. "I'm really excited about the new series because I am also getting a legitimate co-producer credit for all the work I do behind the camera. It's not a vanity credit. I'm super excited to learn from the best and take on new responsibilities." The show premiered on December 6, 2009, and ran for two seasons.


title: Holly Madison

text: In 2021, Madison shared in an interview some of the dark sides of the Playboy lifestyle, as further revealed in 2022 in the A&E documentary series "Secrets of Playboy". Madison was the subject of the show's second episode which aired in January 2022. She described, among other things, the Playboy Mansion as "dangerous" and "very cult-like" and accused Hefner of manipulating her in order to advance her career and even attempting to offer her quaaludes during their first sexual encounter in the summer of 2001. She also said that she was often addicted to alcohol during their relationship and that Hefner would often have photographs taken of her and his other girlfriends when they were naked after getting wasted. Madison alleged this enabled him to use blackmail in order to maintain their relationship. She also maintained her previous allegation that she had "Stockholm syndrome" during her relationship with Hefner as well, stating "I definitely thought I was in love with Hef but it was very Stockholm syndrome, very Stockholm syndrome."


title: Holly Madison

text: In 2015, Madison released her memoir "". The book details her life in the Playboy Mansion and the beginning of her recovery afterward.


title: Holly Madison

text: In May 2016, Madison released her second memoir, "The Vegas Diaries: Romance, Rolling the Dice and the Road to Reinvention", which also debuted on the "New York Times" Best Seller list. The book chronicles her journey toward reinvention and self-acceptance in glamorous Las Vegas.


title: Holly Madison

text: In 2009, Madison said, "I'm never dating anybody again. I don't need a man. I'm really happy with myself and being with my friends... I'm focused on forwarding my career. I'm working on producing my own shows. "Girls Next Door" was a great place to start but it was somebody else's show. I'm just ready to move on."


title: Holly Madison

text: Madison has spoken openly about her cosmetic surgeries, having had both rhinoplasty and breast augmentation. After the latter procedure, her bust measurements went from an A-cup to a D. In 2011, Madison announced that she had insured her breasts for $1 million.


title: Holly Madison

text: In August 2012, Madison announced that she and Pasquale Rotella, whom she began dating in 2011, were expecting their first child. Madison gave birth to their daughter in March 2013, in Las Vegas. Madison and Rotella were married at Disneyland on September 10, 2013, with Marquardt as a bridesmaid, and resided in Las Vegas. Madison gave birth to her second child, a son, in August 2016. Rotella and Madison were separated as of September 25, 2018. In February 2019, the divorce was finalized.


title: IndyCar Series

text: The IndyCar Series, currently known as the NTT IndyCar Series under sponsorship, is the highest class of regional North American open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars in the United States, which has been conducted under the auspices of various sanctioning bodies since 1920 after two initial attempts in 1905 and 1916. The series is self-sanctioned by its parent company, INDYCAR, LLC., which began in 1996 as the Indy Racing League (IRL) and was created by then Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Tony George as a competitor to Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART). In 2008, the IndyCar Series merged with CART's successor, the Champ Car World Series and the history and statistics of both series, as well as those from its predecessors, were unified.


title: IndyCar Series

text: For 1996–1997, the series was simply referred to as the "Indy Racing League." For 1998–1999, the series garnered its first title sponsor, and was advertised as the "Pep Boys Indy Racing League". In 2000, the series sold its naming rights to Internet search engine Northern Light, and the series was named the "Indy Racing Northern Light Series".


title: IndyCar Series

text: The name "IndyCar Series" was officially adopted beginning in 2003, as the series was now legally entitled to use it due to the expiration of a 1996 legal settlement with Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART). The series began to progressively downplay the former IRL name, changing its name to simply IndyCar for the 2008 season. The company was similarly renamed in 2011.


title: IndyCar Series

text: Izod signed a six-year deal to become the series title sponsor beginning on November 5, 2009 through 2014, but the sponsonship was terminated at the end of the 2013 season. In 2014, Verizon Communications became title sponsor of the series through 2018. In January 2019, it was announced that Japanese communications company NTT would become title sponsor and official technology partner of the IndyCar Series.


title: IndyCar Series

text: The IndyCar Series allows manufacturers to develop different types of engines, while every team uses the same chassis. Currently, Dallara provides a specification chassis to all teams, with Honda and Chevrolet providing teams different engines.


title: IndyCar Series

text: In the series' first season (1996), 1992 to 1995 model year CART chassis built by Lola and Reynard were used. The first new Indycar came into being in 1997. Tony George specified new technical rules for less expensive cars and production-based engines. The move effectively outlawed the CART chassis and turbocharged engines that had been the mainstay of the Indianapolis 500 since the late 1970s.


title: IndyCar Series

text: Starting with the 2003 season, the series rules were changed to require chassis manufacturers to be approved by the league before they could build cars. Prior to that, any interested party could build a car, provided it met the rules and was made available to customers at the league-mandated price. In total, four manufacturers have built IndyCar chassis.


title: IndyCar Series

text: Dallara began producing Indycars for the 1997 season. The Dallara and G Force chassis were relatively evenly matched over their first few seasons, but eventually, the Dallara began to win more races. This caused more teams to switch to the Dallara, further increasing their success. As of 2017, a Dallara chassis has been used by 17 Indy 500 winners, although there have not been any competing manufacturers since 2008. Dallara was also tabbed to build the Firestone Indy Lights machines. After the withdrawal of factory support from Panoz Auto Development, they are the only supplier of new chassis.


title: IndyCar Series

text: The G Force chassis was introduced in 1997 and won the 1997 and 2000 Indy 500 races. In 2002, Élan Motorsport Technologies bought G Force, and the chassis was renamed "Panoz G Force", and then shortened to "Panoz" in 2005. In 2003 a new model was introduced, and it won the Indy 500 in 2003–2004 and finished second in 2005. It fell out of favor starting in 2006, and by then, only one had finished in the top ten at Indy. Little factory support was given to IndyCar teams by Panoz after that point, as they had concentrated on their DP01 chassis for the rival Champ Car World Series. By 2008, only one Panoz saw track time, an aborted second-weekend effort at Indy, that resulted in Phil Giebler being injured in a practice crash.


title: IndyCar Series

text: Riley & Scott produced IndyCar chassis from 1997 to 2000. Their initial effort, the Mark V, was introduced late in the 1997 season, severely limiting its potential market. It also proved to be uncompetitive. After Riley & Scott was purchased by Reynard, an all-new model, the Mark VII, was introduced for the 2000 season. It won in Phoenix, the second race of the season (driven by Buddy Lazier), but was off the pace at Indy and was quickly dropped by its teams.


title: IndyCar Series

text: Falcon Cars were founded by Michael Kranefuss and Ken Anderson in 2002 as the third approved chassis supplier for the 2003 season. One rolling chassis was completed and shown, but it was never fitted with a working engine and never ran. No orders were ever filled. Superficially, IndyCar machines closely resemble those of other open-wheeled formula racing cars, with front and rear wings and prominent airboxes. Originally, the cars were unique, being designed specifically for oval racing; for example, the oil and cooling systems were asymmetrical to account for the pull of liquids to the right side of the cars. Later cars were designed to accommodate the added requirements of road racing.


title: IndyCar Series

text: Because of a schedule conflict, the Champ Car World Series spec Panoz DP01, with a Cosworth engine, was run in an IndyCar Series points event in the 2008 Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.


title: IndyCar Series

text: In 2010, IndyCar announced that it would officially adopt a single-make chassis formula, beginning in 2012 among a selection of proposals from interested parties, and set up the ICONIC (Innovative, Competitive, Open-Wheel, New, Industry-Relevant, Cost-Effective) Advisory Committee to make a final recommendation. Proposals were submitted and announced by BAT Engineering, Dallara, Lola, Swift, as well as the radical DeltaWing design that was penned by Ben Bowlby and financed by Chip Ganassi.


title: IndyCar Series

text: On July 2010, IndyCar announced that Dallara had won the contract to remain as the series' single chassis supplier. In 2012 the series adopted the Dallara IR-12 chassis as a cost control method, and IndyCar negotiated a price of $349,000 per chassis. The new specification also improved safety, the most obvious feature being the partial enclosure around the rear wheels, which acts to prevent cars ramping up over another vehicle's back end. This chassis was intended to support multiple aerodynamic kits, but introduction of these was delayed until 2015, with teams citing costs.


title: IndyCar Series

text: After the events of the 2011 IZOD IndyCar World Championships the chassis was nicknamed DW12 in honor of Dan Wheldon.


title: IndyCar Series

text: In 2015, teams began running aero kits developed by their engine manufacturers as a first-ever Dallara DW12 facelift. The kits, while increasing speeds and offering a clear distinction between the two manufacturers, did lead to significant cost increases. Further, Chevrolet's aero kit was the more dominant with Honda only able to mount a competitive charge on ovals due to having slightly better engine power. While Honda was able to make gains in 2016, after two years of development the kits were frozen for 2017, and starting in 2018 all cars ran the same aero package again. To further help reduce costs, IndyCar allowed teams to shop for competitively priced non-safety-related parts such as brakes instead of mandating parts from specific suppliers.


title: IndyCar Series

text: IndyCar had hoped to set a new speed record at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway by 2016 with the introduction of aero kits and the development work associated with them. However, after a series of safety concerns during practice for the 2015 Indianapolis 500 with the Chevrolet aero kit package, this did not come about.


title: IndyCar Series

text: The 2017 season was the third and final year contested with the Chevrolet and Honda aero kits outfitted to the Dallara DW12 chassis. Beginning in 2018, all DW12 Safety Cell chassis was fitted with a universal bodywork kit. Digital renderings for the common bodywork kit, referred to as the 'IR18' car, were released in early May 2017 as a second facelift of Dallara DW12. The car was officially unveiled in late July, and the universal aero kit became known as the UAK18 bodywork.


title: IndyCar Series

text: The bodywork is inspired by CART's 1990s and 2000s designs, with a more streamlined appearance. The redesigned aero kit reduces both aerodynamic downforce and team and manufacturer design development costs. The universal Aero Kit was designed without the wheel guards of the DW12 chassis, which were deemed ineffective and proved prone to breaking. The IR-18 also lacks an air inlet above the cockpit, a first for an IndyCar Series chassis (most Champ Car chassis had been designed that way). The new Aero Kit also has fewer small aerodynamic pieces that can become broken or dislodged, with the intent to reduce the amount of debris that ends up on the track and expenses from repairs. The "aeroscreen" cockpit protection was added in time for the 2020 season, and some minor modifications were eventually conducted to reduce the intense heat caused by stagnant air on the drivers.


title: IndyCar Series

text: For the transmission gearboxes, all IndyCar Series cars currently use an electronically actuated "AGS" ("Assisted Gearchange System") 6-speed semi-automatic sequential gearbox with an electro-pneumatically operated paddle-shift system and a pneumatic clutch with semi-automatic activation, supplied by Xtrac Limited since the 2008 season. All current IndyCar transmissions use pneumatic actuation for the shifting and clutch, so the clutch is therefore only needed for launching the car from a standstill, and the clutch isn't required for gear shifting. From 1996 to 2007, all IndyCar Series cars used a hand-shifted 6-speed sequential manual transmission with a shift stick lever, supplied also by Xtrac since 2000 season until 2007. The clutches of all IndyCar Series cars are carbon with steel housing 3-plate clutch operated by foot-pedal in 1996–2011 later hand-paddle steering wheel clutch in 2012–present and provided by AP Racing. Mechanical limited-slip differentials are also allowed and constant velocity joint tripod driveshafts are also used. All IndyCar Series car drivetrains are currently rear mid-engine with rear-wheel-drive layout.


title: IndyCar Series

text: Since the formation of IndyCar Series in 1996, the brake package for the IndyCar Series was slimmer carbon brake rotors with 4-pot brake calipers and carbon pads on all-oval races until 2011. The thicker steel brake rotors with 6-pot brake calipers and carbon pads were introduced in 2005 for road and street course races for stronger braking while approaching sharper turns even hairpins. From 2012 onwards, IndyCar Series ditched the steel brake discs in favor of carbon brake rotors on all types of tracks but the caliper configuration remained the same as 1996–2011.


title: IndyCar Series

text: PFC currently supplying brake packages for all IndyCar Series cars since 2017 season (disc only) and later increased their involvement from the 2018 season (supplying the calipers and rest of other brake packages). Previously Brembo supplied the brake packages in 2012–2016 (full brake package), 2017 (caliper only), and Alcon in 2003–2011.


title: IndyCar Series

text: BBS and O.Z. Racing has been supplying forged wheels since 1996. The wheel rims for all IndyCar Series cars are made of aluminum alloy. The size of IndyCar Series wheel rims have been on the front and on the rear since 1996; this size will be used until at least the 2022 season. 18-inch wheel rims will be adopted if the Dallara DW12's successor comes out for the 2023 season onward.


title: IndyCar Series

text: Firestone is currently the tire supplier for the series since the 1996 season and later increased to sole tire supplier since 2000 season. Previously, Goodyear had also supplied tires from 1996 to 1999 for several teams, before withdrawing their support. The IndyCar Series runs the bespoke compounds since 1996 and re-profiled in 2003. The front tire sizes are 305/45-R15 (10.0/25.8-R15) and the rear tire sizes are 415/40-R15 (14.5/28.0-R15). The compounds and construction of IndyCar Series tires unique to each mounting position on the race car. For road/street events, there are unique primary and alternative specifications for dry conditions, along with specially designed rain tires for wet conditions. For oval racing, a single set of specifications is used, based upon the configuration and speed of the track, as well as having the right rear tire diameter constructed to be slightly larger than the left rear, (also known as stagger) to aid in high speed cornering.


title: IndyCar Series

text: The suspension of all IndyCar Series cars is double A-arm, pushrod, with third spring and anti-roll bar configuration multilink.


title: IndyCar Series

text: All NTT IndyCar Series cars use carbon-fiber shell driver's seats with 6-point safety restraints. The cars' steering wheels are designed by Cosworth with a system of buttons that allow the drivers to make adjustments to their cars mid-race. All IndyCar Series cars were equipped with Pi Research Sigma Wheel to Display data display units from 2001–2017 until they were replaced by Cosworth's Configurable Display Unit 4.3 display from 2018 onwards (although in 2018 some smaller low-budget IndyCar Series teams still utilized old Pi Research Sigma Wheel instead of new Cosworth Configurable Display Unit 4.3 due to cost reasons).


title: IndyCar Series

text: The cockpits of all IndyCar Series cars are still open but protected by zylon, a foot protection bulkhead, and cockpit padding.


title: IndyCar Series

text: From the 2020 season onwards, the IndyCar Series implemented a cockpit protection system. This consists of a combination of the Halo mandated in Formula One and a reinforced windscreen dubbed the "aeroscreen", provided by Red Bull Advanced Technologies, to lessen the probability of traumatic head injuries from flying debris.


title: IndyCar Series

text: All IndyCar Series cars carry an Electronic Control Unit. Live telemetry is used only for television broadcasts, but the data can be recorded from the ECU to the computer if the car is in the garage tents and not on the track. Previously Motorola supplied IndyCar Series ECU in 2003–2009 for Honda-powered cars, also Denso supplied IndyCar Series ECU in 2003–2005 for Toyota-powered cars and also Zytek supplied IndyCar Series ECU in 2002–2005 for Chevrolet-powered cars.


title: IndyCar Series

text: Rearview mirrors for all IndyCar Series cars are fully mandated to easily enable viewing opponents behind.


title: IndyCar Series

text: At its inception, the IRL used methanol racing fuel, which had been the de facto standard in American open-wheel racing since the 1964 Indianapolis 500 Eddie Sachs - Dave MacDonald crash. Methanol had long provided a safer alternative to gasoline. It had a higher flash point, was easily extinguishable with water, and burned invisible. With the IRL's introduction of night races in 1997, the burning of methanol fuel was visible for the first time, seen with a light blue haze. With this in mind, in an effort to make it more visible in case of fire during daylight hours, additional mixtures were placed in the fuel. As a safety feature, the methanol would burn with color.


title: IndyCar Series

text: In 2005, the driver Paul Dana brought the sponsorship of the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council (EPIC) to his IndyCar team. EPIC is a consortium of ethanol producers that advocate the increased use of ethanol. EPIC was anxious to address public concerns of that era that ethanol use led to engine damage and poor performance when used in road cars. As a marketing effort, it was believed that sponsoring an IndyCar could be used as a tool to promote education and awareness of ethanol use and to curb the spread of erroneous information.