Posts filed under “History”
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY.
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY.
THE NAZI ARCHITECT WHO FILLED YOUR WORLD WITH BEAUTIFUL CONCRETE AND DIDN’T BECOME DICTATOR OF HUNGARY.
St. Peter & St. Paul Greek Catholic (now Ukrainian Orthodox) Church, Carnegie, Pennsylvania, designed by Titus de Bobula
The first half of the article deals mostly with de Bobula’s pioneering role in the introduction of reinforced-concrete construction. It is fascinating to students of architectural history, but the rest might want to skim until the demon of weirdness begins to take over the architect’s personal life about halfway through. Look for the words, “In 1904, de Bobula was tried for voluntary manslaughter…” That is where the story begins to pick up. If your jaw does not begin to dangle a little lower as you read, you may return the article for a refund of the five minutes or so you spent with it.
Titus de Bobula, from Father Pitt’s Pittsburgh Encyclopedia.
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY.
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY.
By Hyacinth at the English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/, via Wikimedia Commons
You can listen to “a computer-generated performance of 4′33″” here.
BODY-IMAGE PROBLEMS IN 1915.
HAPPY BASTILLE DAY.
What can be done with a building like this? It is a work of unusual architectural merit, but it was designed for one purpose, and perfectly adapted to that purpose alone. Our friend Father Pitt, who provides these pictures, suggests that it would do well as the mansion of an eccentric supervillain, but where will we find a supervillain eccentric enough? Perhaps Vladimir Putin will be available soon.
The only other use Dr. Boli could think of was as a film studio. The various parts of the building would make fine fantasy castles, palaces, Bastilles, etc., and the more prosaic sections could be adapted as soundstages.
But it occurs to him that his readers are full of good ideas. If you were the state of Pennsylvania, what would you do with the Western Pen? Where would you look for a buyer who would be willing to preserve the architectural features of the buildings while adapting them to creative new uses? Where would you place the advertisements to attract the attention of eccentric supervillains?
SPEAKING OF COOLIDGE…
Our friend Father Pitt put some effort into restoring this image, which was found in a microfilm copy of the newspaper.
IS THIS FUNNY?
Dr. Boli was browsing through the digital collections at the Library of Congress, and he found the use of this picture to illustrate this collection very funny. But he was not sure that anyone else around him would see the joke. Is this funny to anyone else?
FUN FACTS ABOUT THE SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.
William Hooper, William Ellery, William Floyd, William Paca, and William Whipple formed a group they called the College of Williams, pledging mutual support in the event of an American defeat. William Williams of Connecticut refused to join, calling himself “overqualified.”
Arthur Middleton, who considered literacy beneath his dignity as a South Carolinian gentleman, had to be coached in signing his own name by Thomas Heyward.
Elbridge Gerry came late to the session and was forced to squeeze his signature into a hook-shaped space that he complained looked like “some sort of ridiculous salamander.”
Philip Livingston of New York applied his signature with a novelty ballpoint pen in the shape of the Statue of Liberty. To this day, no one knows where he got it.