Building Brain Busters
Test your Architecture I.Q.
February 2010
Q: What does the new Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago have in common with the Dome nightclub on board the cruise ship Pacific Dawn?
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January 2010
Q: A. James Speyer (1913-86) was a man of exceptionally diverse talents. A practicing architect and professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology and other universities, he also served for 25 years as curator of twentieth-century painting and sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago, a role in which he became highly influential in the museum world. Despite these lofty credentials, however, his most widely recognized work is a detached garage belonging to a single-family house in Highland Park, Illinois. What made this garage so famous?
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November 2009 National Building Museum Online
Q: What is unusual about the mortar used in the construction of the Puente de Piedra (Bridge of Stone) that connects Lima and Rimac, Peru?
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September 2009 National Building Museum Online
Q: In 1890, the year in which How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York, by Jacob Riis, was published, what was the average number of residents per dwelling in New York City?
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July/August 2009 National Building Museum Online
Q: Andrea di Pietro della Gondola is better known by what surname?
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June 2009 National Building Museum Online
Q: What do the Golden Gate Bridge, San Antonio River Walk, LaGuardia Airport, and presidential retreat Camp David have in common?
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May 2009 National Building Museum Online
Q: The Haughwout Department Store building in New York, built in 1857, has a beautiful cast iron façade, but that’s not why it made history. Why is this building so important?
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April 2009 National Building Museum Online
Q: When Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc was appointed to restore the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris in 1847, what then-innovative technology did he employ to document the existing conditions of the building?
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March 2009 National Building Museum Online
Q: While packing your bags for a business trip to another city, you call the mechanical engineer who is hosting the meeting and ask her how you should plan to dress based on the weather there. She responds casually, "Oh, one Clo should be fine," and hangs up. What do you pack?
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February 2009 National Building Museum Online
Q: The Pharos (Lighthouse) off the coast of Alexandria, Egypt, was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It is believed to have been destroyed by a series of earthquakes in the 14th century, but if the tower still existed today and estimates of its height are accurate, how would it rank among the tallest lighthouses in the modern world?
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January 2009 National Building Museum Online
Q: In 1960, Washington architect Robert Paul Brockett was commissioned to design a structure for one of the city's most prestigious addresses–1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW. But you won't see his innovative, strikingly modern design today. Why?
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December 2008 National Building Museum Online
Q: Julian Abele received an architecture degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1904, and went on to study at the prestigious Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Upon his return to Philadelphia in 1906, Abele joined the prominent firm of Horace Trumbauer & Associates, becoming the firm’s chief designer within a couple of years. Over the next four decades or so, he personally designed or oversaw the design of more than 600 projects across the United States. His significant works include the Philadelphia Museum of Art, a mansion for the Vanderbilt family on Long Island, and the main campus of Duke University. Despite this stellar career, however, Abele was not elected to membership in the Philadelphia Chapter of the American Institute of Architects until 1941. Why?
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November 2008 National Building Museum Online
Q: In 1931, a man named C.W. Glover proposed building an airport in the King's Cross area of central London. How did he plan to insert such a large facility into a densely built urban area?
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October 2008 National Building Museum Online
Q: What do Manila and the small city of Baguio, both in the Philippines, have in common with San Francisco and Chicago?
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September 2008 National Building Museum Online
Q: You are about to use a time machine to go back to ancient Rome. Before you leave, your friend the Classical scholar says, “Be sure to see the velarium.” Where would you go and in what direction would you look once you got to Rome?
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July / August 2008 National Building Museum Online
Q: What famous early American architect's son, who occassionally practiced architecture himself, played a major role in the establishment of the African nation of Liberia?
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June 2008 National Building Museum Online
Q: Eero Saarinen’s father, Eliel, famously won second place in the 1922 design competition for the Chicago Tribune Tower. Ten years earlier, in 1912, he won second place in another famous international design competition. What was it?
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May 2008 National Building Museum Online
Q: As of 2008, the Pritzker Architecture Prize has been award 30 times to architects from a total of 16 countries. Only five countries have produced more than one Pritzker Prize winner. What are those five countries?
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