The buildings of Nuffield College, one of the colleges of the
University of Oxford, are to the west of the city centre of Oxford,
England, on the former site of the largely disused basin of the Oxford
Canal. Nuffield College was founded in 1937 after a donation to the
university by the car manufacturer Lord Nuffield. He rejected the
initial designs of the architect Austen Harrison, which were heavily
influenced by Mediterranean architecture, describing them as
"un-English". Harrison then aimed for "something on the lines of
Cotswold domestic architecture", as Nuffield wanted. The college was
built to the revised plans between 1949 and 1960. During construction,
the tower, about 150 feet (46 m) tall, was redesigned to hold the
college's library. Reaction to the architecture has been largely
unfavourable. It has been described as "Oxford's biggest monument to
barren reaction" and "a hodge-podge from the start". However, the
architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner thought that the tower
helped the Oxford skyline and predicted that it would "one day be
loved". The writer Simon Jenkins doubted Pevsner's prediction, though,
saying that "vegetation" was the "best hope" for the tower, and for
the
rest of the college too.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buildings_of_Nuffield_College%2C_Oxford>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1556:
Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer, one of the founders of
Anglicanism, was burnt at the stake in Oxford, England, for heresy.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cranmer>
1909:
The remains of the Báb, one of three central figures of the Bahá'í
Faith, were interred by `Abdu'l-Bahá in Haifa, present-day Israel.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A1b>
1943:
Second World War: Wehrmacht officer Rudolf Christoph von Gersdorff
attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler by suicide bombing, but had to
abort the plan at the last minute.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Christoph_Freiherr_von_Gersdorff>
2002:
British schoolgirl Amanda Dowler was abducted on her way home from
Heathside School in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Amanda_Dowler>
2006:
A man using a hammer smashed the statue of Phra Phrom in the Erawan
Shrine in Bangkok, Thailand, and was subsequently beaten to death by
bystanders.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erawan_Shrine>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
itchy trigger finger (n):
(idiomatic) A tendency to act in haste or without consideration
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/itchy_trigger_finger>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
The year's at the spring,
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hill-side's
dew-pearl'd;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn;</br>God's in His
heaven —
All's right with the world!
--Robert Browning
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Browning>
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