The Exelon Pavilions are four structures which generate electricity
from solar energy and provide access to underground parking in
Millennium Park in the Loop community area of Chicago in Cook County,
Illinois, US. The pavilions provide sufficient energy to power the
equivalent of 14 Energy star-rated energy-efficient houses in Chicago.
The four pavilions, which cost $7 million, were designed in January
2001; construction began in January 2004. The South Pavilions were
completed and opened in July 2004, while the North Pavilions were
completed in November 2004, with a grand opening on April 30, 2005. In
addition to producing energy, three of the four pavilions provide
access to the parking garages below the park, while the fourth serves
as the park's welcome center and office. Exelon, a company that
generates the electricity transmitted by its subsidiary Commonwealth
Edison, donated $5.5 million for the pavilions. Chicago Tribune
architecture critic Blair Kamin praised the South Pavilions as "minor
modernist jewels", but criticized the North Pavilions as "nearly all
black and impenetrable". The North Pavilions have received the
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) silver rating from
the United States Green Building Council, as well as an award from the
American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning
Engineers.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exelon_Pavilions>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1684:
Edmond Halley presented the paper De motu corporum in gyrum, containing
Isaac Newton's derivation of Kepler's laws from his theory of gravity,
to the Royal Society.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_motu_corporum_in_gyrum>
1898:
Forces led by Nguyen Trung Truc, an anti-colonial guerrilla leader in
southern Vietnam, sank the French lorcha L'Esperance.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguyen_Trung_Truc>
1907:
During the Brown Dog affair, about 1,000 protesters marched through
London and then clashed with 400 police officers in Trafalgar Square
over the existence of a memorial for animals which have been
vivisected.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Dog_affair>
1936:
Edward VIII of the United Kingdom, out of a desire to marry American
socialite Wallis Simpson against widespread opposition, abdicated the
royal throne, the first and only British monarch to have done so since
the Anglo-Saxon period.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_VIII_abdication_crisis>
1979:
The Kuomintang (KMT) dictatorship of Taiwan arrested a larger number of
opposition leaders who had organized pro-democracy demonstrations, an
incident credited with ending the KMT's rule in 2000.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaohsiung_Incident>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
intempestivity (n):
Unseasonability; untimeliness
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/intempestivity>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
We despise and abhor the bully, the brawler, the oppressor, whether in
private or public life, but we despise no less the coward and the
voluptuary. No man is worth calling a man who will not fight rather
than submit to infamy or see those that are dear to him suffer wrong.
--Theodore Roosevelt
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt>
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