Portland (City of Roses)

Portland is a city located in the Northwestern United States, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the state of Oregon. As of July 2008, it has an estimated population of 575,930, making it the thirtieth most populous in the United States, and has been referred to as the greenest city in the United States. Portland is Oregon's most populous city, and the third most populous city in the Pacific Northwest, after Vancouver, British Columbia, and Seattle, Washington.

On the mug you will see the Wells Fargo Center standing 546 feet (tallest in the back). Koin Center standing 509 feet (left hand side) looks like a pencil top.

Portland is a leader in sustainable architecture with one of the largest collections of LEED-accredited "green" buildings in the U. S., though the city is better-known for its focus on urban planning. The scale of many projects is relatively small, as a result of the relatively small size of downtown-Portland blocks (200 feet by 200 feet) and strict height restrictions enacted to protect views of nearby Mount Hood from Portland's West Hills. Although these restrictions limit project size, they contribute to Portland's reputation for thoughtful urban planning and livability.

Orange County (The Big Orange)

Orange County is a county in Southern California, United States. Its county seat is Santa Ana. The state of California estimates its population as of 2008 to be 3,121,251, making it the third most populous county in California, behind Los Angeles County and San Diego County.

The county is famous for its tourism, the home of such attractions as Disneyland and Knott's Berry Farm, as well as several beaches along more than 40 miles of coastline. Historically, it has also been known for its cultural contributions, especially in the genres of ska and punk music. It is also recognized for its nationally known centers of religious worship, such as Crystal Cathedral, Saddleback Church, and Calvary Chapel. It is often portrayed in the media as an affluent and politically conservative region.

San Diego (America's Finest City)

Much thanks to my cousin Christine who bought me this mug on her recent trip to San Deigo. San Diego is a coastal Southern California city located in the southwestern corner of the continental United States. It is the second largest city in California and the eighth largest city in the United States, by population.

New York (The Big Apple)

New York City (officially The City of New York) is the largest city in the United States, with its metropolitan area ranking among the largest urban areas in the world. The Big Apple is a nickname or moniker for New York City. It was first popularized in the 1920s by John J. Fitz Gerald, a sports writer for the New York Morning Telegraph. Its popularity since the 1970s is due to a promotional campaign by the New York Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Architecture
Many of the city's neighborhoods and landmarks are known around the world. The Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to America in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Wall Street, in Lower Manhattan, has been a dominant global financial center since World War II and is home to the New York Stock Exchange. The city has been home to several of the tallest buildings in the world, including the Empire State Building and the twin towers of the World Trade Center.

The building form most closely associated with New York City is the skyscraper that saw New York buildings shift from the low-scale European tradition to the vertical rise of business districts. New York City has about 5671 skyscrapers, with 48 completed building over 200 m, the most in the world. Surrounded mostly by water, the city's residential density and high real estate values in commercial districts saw the city amass the largest collection of individual, free-standing office and residential towers in the world.

19th-century brownstone rowhouses in BrooklynNew York has architecturally significant buildings in a wide range of styles. These include the Woolworth Building (1913), an early gothic revival skyscraper built with massively scaled gothic detailing able to be read from street level several hundred feet below. The 1916 Zoning Resolution required setback in new buildings, and restricted towers to a percentage of the lot size, to allow sunlight to reach the streets below. The Art Deco design of the Chrysler Building (1930), with its tapered top and steel spire, reflected the zoning requirements. The building is considered by many historians and architects to be New York's finest building, with its distinctive ornamentation such as replicas at the corners of the 61st floor of the 1928 Chrysler eagle hood ornaments and V-shaped lighting inserts capped by a steel spire at the tower's crown A highly influential example of the international style in the United States is the Seagram Building (1957), distinctive for its facade using visible bronze-toned I-beams to evoke the building's structure. The Condé Nast Building (2000) is an important example of green design in American skyscrapers.

Dallas (The Big D)

Dallas is the third-largest (as estimated by the United States Census Bureau on 1 July 2006) city in the state of Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The city covers 385 square miles and is the county seat of Dallas County. As of July 1, 2006, U.S. Census estimates the population of Dallas at over 1,200,000 people.

Architecture
Dallas's skyline contains several buildings over 700 feet in height and the city is considered the fifteenth-tallest city on earth.

Most of the notable architecture in Dallas is modernist and postmodernist. Iconic examples of modernist architecture include I. M. Pei's Fountain Place, the Bank of America Plaza, Renaissance Tower, and Reunion Tower. Examples of postmodernist architecture include the JPMorgan Chase Tower and Comerica Bank Tower. Several smaller structures are fashioned in the Gothic Revival (Kirby Building) and neoclassical (Davis and Wilson Buildings) styles. One architectural “hotbed” in the city is a stretch of homes along Swiss Avenue, which contains all shades and variants of architecture from Victorian to neoclassical.

The building you see in the center of the mug with a ball on top is the Reunion Tower also known locally as The Ball, The Big Golf Ball, The Dandelion, The Circle Tower, or The Microphone, is a 560 foot observation tower and one of the most recognizable landmarks in Dallas, Texas. Located at 300 Reunion Blvd. in the Reunion district of downtown Dallas, the tower is part of the Hyatt Regency Hotel complex, and is the 15th tallest building in Dallas. A free standing structure until the construction of an addition to the Hyatt Regency Dallas in 2000, the tower was designed by the architectural firm Welton Becket & Associates.

The tower consists of three floors with circular floor plans on top of four shafts of poured in place concrete. A central cylindrical shaft houses stairs and mechanical equipment. Three rectangular shafts, containing elevators, rise parallel to the central shaft. Each shaft's outfacing wall is made up of glass panels, affording views of the city during the 68-second elevator ride to the top. The first level houses the observation deck, the second a revolving restaurant called Antares, and in the third level a club called The Dome. The top three floors are encased in an open air sphere. The sphere is a geodesic dome formed with aluminum struts. Each of the struts' 260 intersections are covered by aluminum circles with lights in the center.

Dallas from Reunion Tower's observation deck.At night, the globe at the top of the building lights with hundreds of bulbs that flash in various computer-generated patterns.

Colorado (Centennial State)

The State of Colorado is a state located in the Rocky Mountain region of the United States of America. Colorado may also be considered to be a part of the Western and Southwestern regions of the United States.

National Parks in Colorado:
Arapaho National Recreation Area
Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site
Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park
Canyons of the Ancients National Monument
Colorado National Monument
Continental Divide National Scenic Trail
Curecanti National Recreation Area
Dinosaur National Monument
Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument
Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve
Hovenweep National Monument
Mesa Verde National Park and UNESCO World Heritage Site
Old Spanish National Historic Trail
Pony Express National Historic Trail
Rocky Mountain National Park
Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site
Santa Fe National Historic Trail
Yucca House National Monument

Chicago (The Windy City)

Chicago is the largest city in the state of Illinois, the largest in the Midwest, and, with a population of nearly 3 million people located almost entirely in Cook County (a portion of the city's O'Hare International Airport overlaps into DuPage County), is the third-most populous city in the United States. The Chicago metropolitan area (commonly referred to as Chicagoland) has a population of over 9.7 million people in Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana, making it also the third largest metropolitan area in the U.S.

Architecture of Chicago
The outcome of the Great Chicago Fire led to the largest building boom in the history of the nation. Perhaps the most outstanding of these events was the relocation of many of the nation's most prominent architects to the city from New England for construction of the 1893 World Columbian Exposition. Many architects including Burnham, Root, Adler and Sullivan went on to design other well known Chicago landmarks because of the Exposition.

In 1885, the first steel-framed high-rise building rose in Chicago ushering in the skyscraper era. Today, Chicago's skyline is among the world's tallest. Downtown's historic buildings include the Chicago Board of Trade Building in the Loop, with others along the lakefront and the Chicago River. Once first on the list of largest buildings in the world and still listed thirteenth, the Merchandise Mart stands near the junction of the north and south river branches. Presently the three tallest in the city are the Sears Tower, the Aon Center (previously the Standard Oil Building), and the John Hancock Center. The city's architecture includes lakefront high-rise residential towers, low-rise structures, and single-family homes. Industrialized areas such as the Indiana border, south of Midway Airport, and the banks of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal are clustered.

One Prudential Plaza, Two Prudential Plaza and the Aon Center from Millennium Park.Future skyline plans entail the supertall Waterview Tower, Chicago Spire, and Trump International Hotel and Tower. The 60602 zip code was named by Forbes as the hottest zip code in the country with upscale buildings such as The Heritage at Millennium Park (130 N. Garland) leading the way for other buildings such at Waterview Tower, The Legacy and Momo. Other new skyscraper construction may be found directly south (South Loop) and north (River North) of the Loop.

Chicago Landmark is a designation of the Mayor of Chicago and the Chicago City Council for historic buildings and other sites in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Listed sites are selected after meeting a combination of criteria, including historical, economic, architectural, artistic, cultural, and social values. Once a site is designated as a landmark, it is subject to the Chicago Landmarks Ordinance, which requires that any alterations beyond routine maintenance, up to and including demolition, must have their permit reviewed by the Landmarks Commission. Many Chicago Landmarks also are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, providing federal tax support for preservation, and some are further designated National Historic Landmarks, providing additional federal oversight.