Taj Mahal

PermalinkToday's AMIT, ,
Lead: On the Jumna River in the city of Agra, India, is the crowning jewel of Indo-Islamic architecture. Built by the emperor of India, Shah Jahan, the structure is one of the most elaborate works of art ever erected.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: Jahan inherited the throne of India at birth and at a fairly early age met and fell deeply in love with a beautiful woman, Arjumrand Band Begun. As his favorite, Arjumrand bore many of the emperor's children and they lived happily until in 1631 she died during childbirth - her fourteenth in eighteen years. So devastated was Jahan by her death that he locked himself in his room for many days. When he emerged he sent for India's finest architects, sculptors and craftsmen. Construction started shortly after the queen's death and for more than a year twenty thousand people worked to complete her tomb. Finished in 1648 it is set in a huge rectangular park and towers 187 feet above the river.

Read more →

The Parthenon

PermalinkToday's AMIT,
Lead: Etched on the Athenian skyline, the Parthenon has been subjected to abuse by a succession of regimes, but throughout even in ruin has retained a profound elemental dignity.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: With the formal cessation of hostilities between the city-states of Greece and their Persian antagonist in 449 BC, the citizens of Athens and their formidable leader Pericles returned to pursuits of peace. He wished to make Athens a center of culture and intellect and began with a comprehensive program of construction and refurbishment. Pericles first project was a magnificent new structure that would dominate the Acropolis, the magnificent Temple of Athena Parthenos.

 

Read more →

The Leaning Tower of Pisa

PermalinkToday's AMIT,
Lead: One of the finest examples of Medieval Italian Romanesque architecture is year by year, slowly, relentlessly inclining to the south. Despite all efforts to correct this, it remains one of the continent’s premier attractions, the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: During the medieval period, the Italian city-state of Pisa derived wealth and power from its dominant commercial location on the Mediterranean coast west of Florence, northeast of Corsica.

Read more →

The Great Wall of China – Part II

PermalinkToday's AMIT,

Lead: Much of the Great Wall of China, as it is known today, was constructed during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

            Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

            Content: The Great Wall of China that we are familiar with today was built by hand during the Ming Dynasty beginning in the late 16th century. The longest structure ever built by mankind, The Great Wall is not actually a continuous structure but a network of walls and fortifications.

Read more →

The Great Wall of China – Part I

PermalinkToday's AMIT,

Lead: Considered to be one the greatest engineering and building feats of mankind, The Great Wall of China was designed to keep the barbarians out.

                 Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts. 

                Content: The Great Wall of China, a contemporary term for a system of defensive barriers to ward off invaders from the north, was built along the northern border of China between the east coast and north central China, covering a 1500 mile border. Including branches and the undulating paths that the walls follow along rivers, mountains and valleys, the total length of the walls is believed to be about 4,800 miles. Contrary to popular myth, the Great Wall of China is not a continuous wall but an amalgamation of walls and fortifications built and rebuilt by several dynasties over a period of 1300 years. The present wall was built chiefly by the Ming Dynasty, who ruled between A.D. 1368-1644.  The height of the wall ranges from 15 to 35 feet with a 13-foot roadway along the top.

Read more →

Frank Turner – Architect of the Interstate

PermalinkToday's AMIT, ,
Lead:  Frank Turner shaped the largest public-works project in U.S. history.

Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: Francis Turner grew up in Texas farm country during the Great Depression. At that time a person could work off their poll tax by doing a day's work building or repairing farm-to-market roads and he remembered helping his father on those roads. He studied soil science at Texas A & M University and worked on military roads in Alaska during the war. After World War II he went to help re-construct the highway system in the Philippines.

Read more →

Victor Gruen and the Shopping Mall

PermalinkToday's AMIT, ,
Lead:  Victor Gruen surveyed his creation and was deeply disappointed.

Intro: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: When Gruen arrived in America in 1938 on the SS Staatendam he was penniless. One of Austria's most promising young architects, just as he was beginning to receive lucrative contracts to provide innovative designs for Vienna's department stores, Adolf Hitler's Nazi cronies took over the country in the Anschluss. Gruen got out in time and soon established himself in the United States as a commercial architect of great creativity.

Read more →