The Ogier Architect's Museum!

[Cherise]

Welcome to the Ogier Architect's Museum!

Admission is free!

 

Well, I will be honest.  You can come in for free, but before you leave we all hope you will tell us about an amazing construction, and show a picture.  This can be something you have seen, been told about, read about, or imagined. 

 

You get extra oohs and ahs for pictures!  And of course, please comment on other people's posted constructions.

 

New on 7/8/09 and FREE, and short, I promise: Hear Cherise, the ogier Architect, SING!

 

I will go first.  I have seen the Eiffel Tower!

 

 

It isn't very big, by today's standards.  I have heard conflicting explanations on why the Eiffel Tower was built.  On the one hand, it was reportedly built to show off the construction potential of steel. On the other hand, it was supposedly built to serve as a radio tower.  Whatever the truth is, the construction is imaginitive and the effect is romantic!

 

 

 

[Fantomboo]

Cool! The tower is one of the places on my list to see before I die. I watched an interesting show on the National Geographic channel that said that the Eifel tower one be one of the last construction to fall apart if man was wiped off the face of the Earth. Somewhere around 10,000 years or so if I remember right. now how is that for a construction!

 

<Goes off to digg through photos of places he has been>

This is going to be a neat place!

[KellySedai]

Sounds like me and Fantom watch a lot of the same shows.  ;)  I love Life After People, its the neatest series.  :D 

 

I've never really been to a lot of places to be honest, at least none that had any really cool buildings... but maybe I can find a great pic of the Space and Rocket Center here in Huntsville, that looks very cool for sure.  ;D

 

I would LOVE to see Paris and the Eiffel Tower someday, it really is one of the most romantic places in the world.  :)

[Cherise]

 

 

Please do search out pics of the Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Kelly!  I have not seen nor heard of it, and I'm probably missing out.  Part of what is really cool about the Internet is, we no longer have to travel -- in order to meet people from faraway lands, or to see exotic sites.

 

Boo, you can Google pics of places you have been, you don't have to dig up your own pics.  That is what I did, with the Eiffel Tower.

[KellySedai]

Here are some good ones of Space Camp.  :)

 

[Cherise]

 

Thanks for posting the space camp pictures, Kelly!

 

The one of the rocket is my favorite. 

 

I still cannot quite wrap my (RL human) mind around the idea that we have actually rocketed to the moon.  Even though I have seen it on TV many times...  I mean, only maybe what, 5000 people would know how to build a rocket if they needed to from scratch?  I'm not sure I could even build a pencil (my RL human self, I mean), but a rocket is just, stupefyingly complex.

[Samuraiflip05]

The Gateway Arch, also known as the Gateway to the West, was designed by Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen and structural engineer Hannskarl Bandel in 1947.  It is the centerpiece of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. 

 

It is the tallest monument in the United States, standing at 630 feet tall and 630 feet wide.  Construction of the arch started on February 12, 1963 and was completed on October 28, 1965. The monument opened to the public on July 24, 1967.  The Arch is shaped as an Equilateral Triangle narrowing from 54 feet per side at the base to 17 feet at the top.  The interior of the arch is a hollow frame of Carbon Steel, Concrete and Rebar.  Each leg contains a unique transportation system and a set of stairs(1076 per leg to be exact). 

 

During construction both legs were built simultaneously.  The engineering tolerance of each leg was 1/64th of an inch.  Anything more and the legs would not match-up at the top.  Nearing the end of construction a special scaffold was used to hang between the two legs.  When it came time to fit the final pieces, the legs did not line up due to thermal expansion of the sunfacing southern leg.  This problem was overcome when the St Louis Fire Department doused the South leg with water until it had cooled enough to line up. 

 

The tram is a unique combination of a traditional elevator cable system and a set of gimbaled cars.  These cars, much like ferris wheel gondolas, are made to maintain an upright position during the journey through the angled legs.  The egg-shaped cars hold 5 passengers and there are 8 cars on each of the two trams. 

 

[Cherise]

 

Thanks for putting the Gateway Arch in our museum, Sam!  It is a unique monument, to be sure.  I love knowing the story of how they had to douse it with water to get it to fit together correctly, too.  How funny! 

 

My next submission will be Hoover Dam, early next week.

[Cherise]

Maybe the most impressive engineering feat I have seen is Hoover Dam.

 

 

One of the most interesting facts about the Hoover Dam is that it contains more masonry than the Pyramid of Giza.  There is enough concrete in Hoover Dam (4 1/2 million cubic yards) to build a 2 lane road from Seattle, Washington to Miami, Florida or a 4 ft. wide sidewalk around the Earth at the Equator. 

 

Refrigeration coils were built into the cement, and cooled freon was pumped through it, so that it set faster.  Otherwise, it would have taken 50 years to set this much cement. 

 

Lake Mead is the largest reservoir in the USA and contains enough water to flood the entire state of New York with 1 ft. of water (26 million acre ft.).

 

If you drink water from the tap at Disneyland, Anaheim or Sea World in San Diego -- that water is coming from the Colorado River and Lake Mead, 300 miles away.

 

When operating at full power, the 17 generators can supply all the electricity needed by a city of 750,000 people.

 

The Colorado River is more than 1,400 miles long and supplies water to Los Angeles, San Diego, and Phoenix. Las Vegas gets almost all its water from Lake Mead. Lake Mead was made by Hoover Dam when it blocked the Colorado River and flooded the Mojave Desert.

 

The way they did this was: they tunneled 4 miles 50 foot wide through solid rock on either side of the river, and let the water run through the tunnels so they could build the dam.  The tunnels are still there and I have seen them.

 

 

 

 

[Loreina]

:) I have picnic'd near the Eiffel Tower! It's a pretty place.

 

One of the most awesome places I've been is Stonehenge. People carved graffiti into the stones before they were protected. But what's really interesting is the way you feel when you're there. It's indescribable. You can almost feel the history seeping into your body through the soles of your shoes.

Facts about Stonehenge:

Age estimated at 3100 BC

Location Wiltshire, UK

OS Reference SU 122 422

Type of stone Bluestone, Sarson, Welsh Sandstone

Worship Lunar, Solar

Access English Heritage - there is a charge to visit the stones

Extra notes Except on special or arranged occasions, visitors are unable to walk amongst the stones

Stonehenge was constructed in three phases. It has been estimated that the three phases of the construction required more than thirty million hours of labour. Speculation on the reason it was built range from human sacrifice to astronomy.

 

Check it out at:

http://www.stonehenge.co.uk/ 

[KellySedai]

Wow I knew the Hoover Dam was big, but that's incredible!  I had no idea it brought water to so many people.  Thanks for all that info Cherise!  :)

 

Lor, I have ALWAYS wanted to see Stonehenge, its one of my goals in life.  ;)  Such an amazing, mysterious place in our human history.

[Fantomboo]

I would love to visit Stonehenge one day. I watched a show that was very interesting on Stonehenge. This guy was some archeologist that believes that it was a place for the dead and not far from it is where thousands of people would gather every year to pay tribute or even bury high ranking chiefs there. The show was very interesting. Since, it has always been a common belief that it had something to do with the solstices. Always fun to see other people’s ideas backed with science.

[KellySedai]

I saw that special too Fantom, I always watch any specials on Stonehenge.  Everyone has such varying opinions about it.  :D

[Cherise]

Yes, I have always been fascinated with Stonehenge, too!  I think it -- and each other henge -- was a calendar.  My mom surprised me with a visit there on Shortest Day in 1989.  Shortest Day is one of the few times per year when visitors can actually walk among the stones.  Drat though, I can't locate my photos of it right now!

 

OGIER ORIGIN THEORY CONNECTION!

 

Yay!  Loreina is the first ogier architect museum patron to trigger an ogier origin theory connection here in the museum!

 

The origins and purposes of many ancient architectures are unknown.  Stonehenge is one of these.  I think that Robert Jordan meant us to surmise that the Ogier were the builders of these ancient architectures!  By now, though, in our age, the ogier are merely legend, and we spell them wrong, ogres.

 

[KellySedai]

Now that is a damn good theory!  I like it!  :D  I wonder what other Ogier Origins there could be.... ;D

[Samuraiflip05]

Quite possible.  ;)

[Loreina]

WOOT!  Go me! *lol* 

 

They recently excavated an ancient grave near Stonehenge of a man buried with unusual artifacts that indicated that he was both very important and not from that area.  So mysterious!  8)

 

I didn't post pics, cause it's so well known, but I'll dig some out later. I haven't time atm.  :)

 

Kelly, I have stood inside one of those rocket cones on the Saturn 5 booster. They are huge. Awesomely cool!

 

I've seen the Gateway Arch only from flying through St. Louis, 'Boo. I didn't know it had so much interesting background.  :)

[Samuraiflip05]

Some pictures of it's construction phases. 

 

 

 

 

[canyousayjump]

Newgrange: Ireland's Greatest Feat of Engineering

 

Newgrange is a passage tomb situated in the Boyne Valley. This burial chamber is famous for it's illumination during the winter solstise and it's complex design. It was built before the Great Pyramid of Giza, is 76m in lenght and 12m in height. The roof of the passage gradually decreases as you walk down to the burial chamber. It's interior consists of slabs of rock configured with mortar. The peak is corbelled so as to allow for the roof to reach a point. Within and outside Newgrange are large boulders and slabs with spirals etched in them. Some believe(as do I) that if you draw your index finger along the path of the spiral you will have offered up a prayer to Danu

 

Finally, Newgrange is purported to be the one of the sidhes(fairy-mounds) the Tuatha Dé Danann(Danu's tribe) fled to after the Milesians conquered Ireland.

 

[KellySedai]

That is so cool Jump!  I've always been a huge history buff, and anything about Ireland is high on my list.  ;) 

[Cherise]

 

 

We ogier thank you, Jump, for your contribution to the Ogier Architect's Museum!  Please accept this token of our appreciation, and wear it proudly on feast days!

 

[Loreina]

:) That is awesome! I want to go! Is there a link Jump?

[canyousayjump]

Wow you're all really nice!! ;D

 

KellySedai - If you ever need to know anything about Irish history, give me a shout :)

 

Cherise - Thank you!!Ooooh looks heavy :D ;D

 

Loreina - Sure is.http://www.newgrange.com/ :)

 

 

[Loreina]

Thanks sweetie,  :-*

Of course we're nice! We're Ogier!  ;D

[KellySedai]

:o OMG I want one of those Cherise!!  SOOOOO pretty!  ;D

 

Thanks Jump, I love anything Irish or Celtic.  My name doesn't give it away does it?  ;)