Newport News, VA

Newport News builds the largest moving objects mankind makes. Its shipyard — the biggest in the United States, employing tens of thousands — is the only place in the world that constructs nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, and has launched them all, from the first to the newest; the city's economy, skyline and self-respect rise from the ways along the James River. Fittingly, it also keeps the sea's memory: The Mariners' Museum, set in its own wooded park, ranks among the great maritime museums of the world, and its USS Monitor Center conserves the actual turret of the Civil War ironclad, raised from the Atlantic floor.

The city's musical gift to the world arrived in 1917: Ella Fitzgerald, the First Lady of Song, was born in Newport News, and Pearl Bailey followed a year later — two of America's most beloved voices from the same shipbuilding streets, both honoured across the city today. The archive's stage is the Ferguson Center for the Arts at Christopher Newport University, the concert complex designed by the successor firm of I. M. Pei, whose halls have made the campus the performing-arts centre of the Virginia Peninsula, presenting the world's orchestras, soloists and touring companies. Carriers, the Monitor's turret and Ella's first lullabies: heavy industry with perfect pitch.