The Point Park Civic Center was a proposed civic center for downtown
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where the confluence of the Allegheny and
Monongahela Rivers forms the Ohio River. The structure was designed by
Frank Lloyd Wright on commission from Edgar J. Kaufmann in the late
1940s. Wright initially envisioned a circular building more than 1000
feet (300 m) in diameter and 175 feet (50 m) tall. The structure,
containing an opera house, sports arena, three movie theaters, and a
convention hall, was wrapped with a spiraling strip of road. The plan
expressed Wright's insistence on bringing the automobile into the
social setting. It did not find favor with Pittsburgh authorities. To
make the design more palatable to its audience, Wright developed a
radically different proposal for a monolithic tower supporting bridges
across the Allegheny and Monongahela. This too was unsuccessful, and
none of Wright's work for the site was ever built. The site is now
occupied by Point State Park. The unused design has garnered scholarly
attention, and elements of it have been compared to other Wright
designs, such as the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and his unrealized
plans for Monona Terrace. (more...)
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<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Park_Civic_Center>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1054:
Siward, Earl of Northumbria, led an invasion of Scotland and defeated
Macbeth, King of Scotland, in a battle north of the Firth of Forth.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siward%2C_Earl_of_Northumbria>
1302:
Byzantine–Ottoman Wars: The Ottoman emirate scored its first major
victory against the Byzantine Empire in the Battle of Bapheus in
Bithynia.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bapheus>
1663:
The Parliament of England passed the second of the Navigation Acts,
which required that all goods bound for the American colonies had to be
sent in English ships from English ports.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navigation_Acts>
1921:
University of Toronto researchers led by Frederick Banting proved that
the hormone insulin regulates blood sugar.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/insulin>
1942:
World War II: Allied forces halted the Axis invasion of Egypt.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_El_Alamein>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
captious (adj):
Tending to find fault at any opportunity; prone to raising petty
objections
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/captious>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
I've been sleeping through my life
Now I'm waking up
And I want to stand in the sunshine
I have
never been ecstatic
Had a flower but it never bloomed
In the darkness of my wasted
youth
It was hiding in the shadows
Learning to become invisible
Uncover
me.
--Juliana Hatfield
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Juliana_Hatfield>