The Incredible Engineering of Antonio Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia, the 137 Year Construction Project

in Architecture, Art | May 24th, 2021

When (or if) it is final­ly fin­ished in 2026, a full 100 years after its archi­tect Antoni Gaudí’s death, the Basil­i­ca de la Sagra­da Famil­ia will be the largest church in the world — mak­ing it, on the one hand, a dis­tinct­ly 19th cen­tu­ry phe­nom­e­non much like oth­er struc­tures designed in the late 1800s. The Brook­lyn Bridge, for instance, became the longest sus­pen­sion bridge in the world in 1883, the same year Gaudí took over the Sagra­da Famil­ia project; the Eif­fel Tow­er took the hon­or of tallest struc­ture in the world when it opened six years lat­er. Biggest was in the briefs for major indus­tri­al build­ing projects of the age.

Most oth­er mon­u­men­tal con­struc­tion projects of the time, how­ev­er, excelled in one cat­e­go­ry Gaudí reject­ed: speed. While the Brook­lyn Bridge took 14 years to build, cost many lives, includ­ing its chief architect’s, and suf­fered sev­er­al set­backs, its con­struc­tion was still quite a con­trast to the medieval archi­tec­ture from which its designs drew. Prague’s 14th cen­tu­ry Charles Bridge took 45 years to fin­ish. Half a cen­tu­ry was stan­dard for goth­ic cathe­drals in the Mid­dle Ages. (Notre-Dame was under con­struc­tion for hun­dreds of years.) Their orig­i­nal archi­tects hard­ly ever lived to see their projects to com­ple­tion.

Gaudí’s enor­mous mod­ernist cathe­dral was as much a per­son­al labor of love as a gift to Barcelona, but unlike his con­tem­po­raries, he had no per­son­al need to see it done. He was “unfazed by its glacial progress,” notes Atlas Obscu­ra. The archi­tect him­self said, “There is no rea­son to regret that I can­not fin­ish the church. I will grow old but oth­ers will come after me. What must always be con­served is the spir­it of the work, but its life has to depend on the gen­er­a­tions it is hand­ed down to and with whom it lives and is incar­nat­ed.”

Per­haps even Gaudí could not have fore­seen Sagra­da Famil­ia would take over 130 years, its cranes and scaf­fold­ing dom­i­nat­ing the city’s sky­line, decade after decade. A few things — the Span­ish Civ­il War, inevitable fund­ing issues — got in the way. But it’s also the case that Sagra­da Famil­ia is unlike any­thing else ever built. Gaudí “found much of his inspi­ra­tion and mean­ing in archi­tec­ture,” the Real Engi­neer­ing video above notes, “by fol­low­ing the pat­terns of nature, using the beau­ty that he saw as a gift from God as the ulti­mate blue­print to the world.”

Learn above what sets Sagra­da Famil­ia apart — its cre­ator was not only a mas­ter archi­tect and artist, he was also a mas­ter engi­neer who under­stood how the strange, organ­ic shapes of his designs “impact­ed the struc­tur­al integri­ty of the build­ing. Rather than fight against the laws of nature, he worked with them.” And nature, we know, likes to take its time.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

The Japan­ese Sculp­tor Who Ded­i­cat­ed His Life to Fin­ish­ing Gaudí’s Mag­num Opus, the Sagra­da Família

Watch Antoni Gaudí’s Unfin­ished Mas­ter­piece, the Sagra­da Família, Get Final­ly Com­plet­ed in 60 Sec­onds

A Vir­tu­al Time-Lapse Recre­ation of the Build­ing of Notre Dame (1160)

An Ani­mat­ed Video Shows the Build­ing of a Medieval Bridge: 45 Years of Con­struc­tion in 3 Min­utes

How the Brook­lyn Bridge Was Built: The Sto­ry of One of the Great­est Engi­neer­ing Feats in His­to­ry

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

Revisiting Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Goin’ On,” and the Album That Opened R&B to Resistance: Revisited 50 Years Later

in Life, Music, Politics | May 24th, 2021

I just want to be heard and that’s all that mat­ters. — Mar­vin Gaye

R&B super­star Mar­vin Gaye was more than will­ing to risk his career on a record.

His pol­ished pub­lic per­sona was a false front behind which lurked some seri­ous demons — depres­sion and addic­tion, exac­er­bat­ed by the ill­ness and death of his close friend and duet mate, Tam­mi Ter­rell.

His down­ward spi­ral was also fueled by his dis­tress over events of the late 60s.

How else to respond to the Viet­nam War, the mur­der of civ­il rights lead­ers, police bru­tal­i­ty, the Watts Riots, a dire envi­ron­men­tal sit­u­a­tion, and the dis­en­fran­chise­ment and aban­don­ment of low­er income Black com­mu­ni­ties?

Per­haps by refus­ing to adhere to pro­duc­er Bar­ry Gordy’s man­date that all Motown artists were to steer clear of overt polit­i­cal stances….

He con­trolled their careers, but art is a pow­er­ful out­let.

Obie Ben­son also came under Gordy’s thumb as a mem­ber of the R&B quar­tet, the Four Tops. The shock­ing vio­lence he wit­nessed in Berkeley’s Peo­ple’s Park on Bloody Thurs­day while on tour with his band pro­vid­ed the lyri­cal inspi­ra­tion for “What’s Goin’ On.”

When the oth­er mem­bers of the group refused to touch it, not want­i­ng to rock the boat with a protest song, he took it to Gaye, who had lost all enthu­si­asm for the “bull­shit” love songs that had made him a star

Ben­son recalled that Gaye added some “things that were more ghet­to, more nat­ur­al, which made it seem more like a sto­ry than a song… we mea­sured him for the suit and he tai­lored the hell out of it.”

Gordy was not pleased with the song’s mes­sage, nor his loosey goosey approach to lay­ing down the track. Eli Fontaine’s famous sax­o­phone intro was impro­vised and “Motown’s secret weapon,” bassist James Jamer­son was so plas­tered on Metaxa, he was record­ed sprawl­ing on the floor.

Jamer­son told his wife they’d been work­ing on a “mas­ter­piece,” but Gordy dubbed “What’s Going On” “the worst thing I ever heard in my life,” pooh-poohing the “Dizzy Gille­spie stuff in the mid­dle, that scat­ting.” He refused to release it.

Gaye stonewalled by going on strike, refus­ing to record any music what­so­ev­er.

Eight months in, Motown’s A&R Head Har­ry Balk, des­per­ate for anoth­er release from one of the label’s most pop­u­lar acts, direct­ed sales vice pres­i­dent Bar­ney Ales to drop the new sin­gle behind Gordy’s back.

It imme­di­ate­ly shot to the top of the charts, sell­ing 70,000 copies in its first week.

Gordy, warm­ing to the idea of more sales, abrupt­ly reversed course, direct­ing Gaye to come up with an entire album of protest songs. It ush­ered in a new era in which Black record­ing artists were not only free, but encour­aged to use their voic­es to bring about social change.

The album, What’s Going On, recent­ly claimed top hon­ors when Rolling Stone updat­ed its  500 Great­est Albums list. Now, it is cel­e­brat­ing its 50th anniver­sary, and as Poly­phon­ic, pro­duc­ers of the mini-doc above note, its sen­ti­ments couldn’t be more time­ly.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Hear Mar­vin Gaye Sing “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” A Capel­la: The Haunt­ing Iso­lat­ed Vocal Track

Nina Simone’s Live Per­for­mances of Her Poignant Civ­il Rights Protest Songs

Hear a 4 Hour Playlist of Great Protest Songs: Bob Dylan, Nina Simone, Bob Mar­ley, Pub­lic Ene­my, Bil­ly Bragg & More

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Join her June 7 for a Necro­mancers of the Pub­lic Domain: The Peri­od­i­cal Cica­da, a free vir­tu­al vari­ety hon­or­ing the 17-Year Cicadas of Brood X. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.

John Steinbeck Wrote a Werewolf Novel, and His Estate Won’t Let the World Read It: The Story of Murder at Full Moon

in History, Literature | May 24th, 2021

Pho­to of Stein­beck by Sonya Noskowiak, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

John Stein­beck wrote Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath, and East of Eden, but not before he’d put a few less-acclaimed nov­els under his belt. He did­n’t even break through to suc­cess of any kind until 1935’s Tor­tilla Flat, which lat­er became a pop­u­lar roman­tic-com­e­dy film with Spencer Tra­cy and Hedy Lamarr. That was already Stein­beck­’s fourth pub­lished nov­el, and he’d writ­ten near­ly as many unpub­lished ones. Two of those three man­u­scripts he destroyed, but a fourth sur­vives at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Texas in Austin’s Har­ry Ran­som Cen­ter, which spe­cial­ized in hoard­ing lit­er­ary ephemera, espe­cial­ly from Nobel lau­re­ates. The unpub­lished nov­el deals not with labor­ers, farm­ers, or wastrels, but a were­wolf.

“Set in a fic­tion­al Cal­i­forn­ian coastal town, Mur­der at Full Moon tells the sto­ry of a com­mu­ni­ty gripped by fear after a series of grue­some mur­ders takes place under a full moon,” writes The Guardian’s Dalya Alberge. “Inves­ti­ga­tors fear that a super­nat­ur­al mon­ster has emerged from the near­by marsh­es. Its char­ac­ters include a cub reporter, a mys­te­ri­ous man who runs a local gun club and an eccen­tric ama­teur sleuth who sets out to solve the crime using tech­niques based on his obses­sion with pulp detec­tive fic­tion.”

Alberge quotes Stan­ford lit­er­ary schol­ar Gavin Jones describ­ing the book as relat­ed to Stein­beck­’s “inter­est in vio­lent human trans­for­ma­tion – the kind of human-ani­mal con­nec­tion that you find all over his work; his inter­est in mob vio­lence and how humans are capa­ble of oth­er states of being, includ­ing par­tic­u­lar­ly vio­lent mur­der­ers.”

Then still in his twen­ties, Stein­beck wrote Mur­der at Full Moon under the pseu­do­nym Peter Pym. After receiv­ing only rejec­tions from pub­lish­ers, he shelved the man­u­script and seems not to have giv­en it anoth­er thought, even in order to dis­pose of it. Though Stein­beck­’s estate has declared its lack of inter­est in its posthu­mous pub­li­ca­tion, Jones believes it would find a recep­tive read­er­ship today:  “It’s a hor­ror pot­boil­er, which is why I think read­ers would find it more inter­est­ing than a more typ­i­cal Stein­beck.” It also “pre­dicts Cal­i­forn­ian noir detec­tive fic­tion. It is an unset­tling sto­ry whose atmos­phere is one of fog-bound, mali­cious, malig­nant secre­cy.” It could at least have made quite a noir film, ide­al­ly one star­ring Lon Chaney, Jr., whose per­for­mance in Of Mice and Men proved he could play a Stein­beck char­ac­ter — to say noth­ing of his sub­se­quent turn in The Wolf Man.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

John Steinbeck’s Six Tips for the Aspir­ing Writer and His Nobel Prize Speech

John Stein­beck Reads Two Short Sto­ries, “The Snake” and “John­ny Bear” in 1953

John Stein­beck Has a Cri­sis in Con­fi­dence While Writ­ing The Grapes of Wrath: “I am Not a Writer. I’ve Been Fool­ing Myself and Oth­er Peo­ple”

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities, the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.

Ancient Philosophy: Free Online Course from the University of Pennsylvania

in Online Courses, Philosophy | May 23rd, 2021

This two part course from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia (Part 1 here — Part 2 here) “traces the ori­gins of phi­los­o­phy in the West­ern tra­di­tion in the thinkers of Ancient Greece,” begin­ning with “the Pre­so­crat­ic nat­ur­al philoso­phers who were active in Ionia in the 6th cen­tu­ry BCE and are also cred­it­ed with being the first sci­en­tists.” The course descrip­tion con­tin­ues:

Thales, Anax­i­man­der, and Anax­imines made bold pro­pos­als about the ulti­mate con­stituents of real­i­ty, while Her­a­cli­tus insist­ed that there is an under­ly­ing order to the chang­ing world. Par­menides of Elea for­mu­lat­ed a pow­er­ful objec­tion to all these pro­pos­als, while lat­er Greek the­o­rists (such as Anaxago­ras and the atom­ist Dem­ocri­tus) attempt­ed to answer that objec­tion. In fifth-cen­tu­ry Athens, Socrates insist­ed on the impor­tance of the fun­da­men­tal eth­i­cal question—“How shall I live?”—and his pupil, Pla­to, and Plato’s pupil, Aris­to­tle, devel­oped elab­o­rate philo­soph­i­cal sys­tems to explain the nature of real­i­ty, knowl­edge, and human hap­pi­ness. After the death of Aris­to­tle, in the Hel­lenis­tic peri­od, Epi­cure­ans and Sto­ics devel­oped and trans­formed that ear­li­er tra­di­tion.

Part I cov­ers Pla­to and his pre­de­ces­sors. Part II cov­ers Aris­to­tle and his suc­ces­sors. Both cours­es are taught by pro­fes­sor Susan Sauvé Mey­er.

You can take these cours­es for free by select­ing the audit option upon enrolling. If you want to take the cours­es for a cer­tifi­cate, you will need to pay a fee.

Both cours­es will be added to our list of Free Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es, a sub­set of our larg­er col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A His­to­ry of Phi­los­o­phy in 81 Video Lec­tures: A Free Course That Explores Phi­los­o­phy from Ancient Greece to Mod­ern

Free Clas­sics Cours­es

The His­to­ry of Phi­los­o­phy With­out Any Gaps Pod­cast, Now at 370 Episodes, Expands into East­ern Phi­los­o­phy

Making Architecture: A Free Online Course from the IE School of Architecture and Design

in | May 23rd, 2021

Mak­ing Archi­tec­ture, a course from the IE School of Archi­tec­ture and Design in Segovia (Spain), “offers a unique insight into the mind and work of an Archi­tect, start­ing with the basics of the pro­fes­sion and cul­mi­nat­ing with the pro­duc­tion of a scaled site mod­el. The course should act as ide­al prepa­ra­tion for those inter­est­ed in under­tak­ing an under­grad­u­ate degree in Archi­tec­ture, although its flex­i­ble, intrigu­ing and enjoy­able con­tent makes it acces­si­ble for all those look­ing to increase their knowl­edge in the field.”

The course descrip­tion goes on to add:

Deliv­ered pri­mar­i­ly by Pro­fes­sors from the IE School of Archi­tec­ture and design, the course begins by exam­in­ing the mind-set of an Archi­tect — ask­ing how they think and what they do to train their cre­ative minds, mov­ing on to using inspi­ra­tion from the envi­ron­ment to stim­u­late design ideas. Final­ly, the course con­cludes by look­ing at some of the more tech­ni­cal aspects of Archi­tec­ture — such as com­po­si­tion, form, space and hier­ar­chy — and stress­ing the impor­tance of cre­at­ing a sto­ry that helps define your design.

This fas­ci­nat­ing con­tent is deliv­ered prin­ci­pal­ly from the stun­ning design stu­dio at  and fea­tures exter­nal videos from a few beau­ti­ful loca­tions in the city of Segovia. Final­ly, it includes inter­views from Pritzk­er Prize exec­u­tive direc­tor — and Dean of the school of Archi­tec­ture and design at IE — Martha Thorne, with a num­ber of award win­ning prac­tis­ing archi­tects such as Sarah Wig­glesworth and Cristoph Ingen­hoven.

You can take Mak­ing Archi­tec­ture for free by select­ing the audit option upon enrolling. If you want to take the course for a cer­tifi­cate, you will need to pay a fee.

Mak­ing Archi­tec­ture will be added to our list, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

Wonders of Ancient Egypt: A Free Online Course from the University of Pennsylvania

in | May 22nd, 2021

Image by Ricar­do Lib­er­a­to, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

From David Sil­ver­man, a pro­fes­sor and cura­tor of Egyp­tol­ogy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia, comes a free online course, Won­ders of Ancient Egypt. The course descrip­tion reads:

Colos­sal pyra­mids, impos­ing tem­ples, gold­en trea­sures, enig­mat­ic hiero­glyphs, pow­er­ful pharaohs, strange gods, and mys­te­ri­ous mum­mies are fea­tures of Ancient Egypt­ian cul­ture that have fas­ci­nat­ed peo­ple over the mil­len­nia. The Bible refers to its gods, rulers, and pyra­mids. Neigh­bor­ing cul­tures in the ancient Near East and Mediter­ranean wrote about its god-like kings and its seem­ing­ly end­less sup­ply of gold. The Greeks and Romans describe aspects of Egyp­t’s cul­ture and his­to­ry.

As the 19th cen­tu­ry began, the Napoleon­ic cam­paign in Egypt high­light­ed the won­ders of this ancient land, and pub­lic inter­est soared. Not long after, Cham­pol­lion deci­phered Egyp­t’s hiero­glyphs and paved the way for oth­er schol­ars to reveal that Egypt­ian texts dealt with med­i­cine, den­tistry, vet­eri­nary prac­tices, math­e­mat­ics, lit­er­a­ture, and account­ing, and many oth­er top­ics. Then, ear­ly in the 20th cen­tu­ry, Howard Carter dis­cov­ered the tomb of Tutankhamun and its fab­u­lous con­tents. Exhi­bi­tions of this trea­sure a few decades lat­er result­ed in the world’s first block­buster, and its revival in the 21st cen­tu­ry has kept inter­est alive.

Join Dr. David Sil­ver­man, Pro­fes­sor of Egyp­tol­ogy at Penn, Cura­tor in Charge of the Egypt­ian Sec­tion of the Penn Muse­um, and cura­tor of the Tutankhamun exhi­bi­tions on a guid­ed tour of the mys­ter­ies and won­ders of this ancient land. He has devel­oped this online course and set it in the gal­leries of the world famous Penn Muse­um. He uses many orig­i­nal Egypt­ian arti­facts to illus­trate his lec­tures as he guides stu­dents as they make their own dis­cov­ery of this fas­ci­nat­ing cul­ture.

You can take Won­ders of Ancient Egypt for free by select­ing the audit option upon enrolling. If you want to take the course for a cer­tifi­cate, you will need to pay a fee.

Won­ders of Ancient Egypt will be added to our list, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Harvard’s Dig­i­tal Giza Project Lets You Access the Largest Online Archive on the Egypt­ian Pyra­mids (Includ­ing a 3D Giza Tour)

Pyra­mids of Giza: Ancient Egypt­ian Art and Archaeology–a Free Online Course from Har­vard

A 3,000-Year-Old Painter’s Palette from Ancient Egypt, with Traces of the Orig­i­nal Col­ors Still In It

Roman Art and Archaeology: A Free Online Course from The University of Arizona

in | May 22nd, 2021

From David Soren at The Uni­ver­si­ty of Ari­zona comes Roman Art and Archae­ol­o­gy, a course whose objec­tive is “to pro­vide an overview of the cul­ture of ancient Rome begin­ning about 1000 BCE and end­ing with the so-called Fall of Rome.” The course descrip­tion con­tin­ues: “We will look at some of the key peo­ple who played a role in Rome, from the time of the kings through the Roman Repub­lic and the Roman Empire. We will also focus on the city of Rome itself, as well as Rome’s expan­sion through Italy, the Mediter­ranean, and beyond.”

Dr. David Soren is Regents Pro­fes­sor of Anthro­pol­o­gy and Clas­sics with the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ari­zona and Direc­tor of the Orvi­eto Insti­tute in Umbria, Italy. He holds a B.A. in Greek & Roman Stud­ies from Dart­mouth, and an M.A. in Fine Arts and Ph.D. in Clas­si­cal Archae­ol­o­gy from Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty.

You can take Roman Art and Archae­ol­o­gy for free by select­ing the audit option upon enrolling. If you want to take the course for a cer­tifi­cate, you will need to pay a fee.

Roman Art and Archae­ol­o­gy will be added to our list, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Ancient Greeks: A Free Online Course from Wes­leyan Uni­ver­si­ty

Roman Archi­tec­ture: A Free Online Course from Yale Uni­ver­si­ty

Free Clas­sics Cours­es

How Did Hannibal Cross the Alps?: A Short Free Course from Stanford

in | May 22nd, 2021

Over on iTunes, you can find a short course (8 lec­tures in total) on the age-old mys­tery: How did Han­ni­bal and his ele­phants cross the Alps dur­ing the Sec­ond Punic War? The course was pre­sent­ed by arche­ol­o­gist Patrick Hunt in the Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies pro­gram at Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty, back in 2007. Here’s the descrip­tion for the course:

Han­ni­bal is a name that evoked fear among the ancient Romans for decades. His courage, cun­ning and intre­pid march across the dan­ger­ous Alps in 218 BCE with his army and war ele­phants make for some of the most excit­ing pas­sages found in ancient his­tor­i­cal texts writ­ten by Poly­bius, Livy, and Appi­an. And they con­tin­ue to inspire his­to­ri­ans and archae­ol­o­gists today. The mys­tery of his exact route is still a top­ic of debate, one that has con­sumed Patrick Hunt (Direc­tor of Stanford’s Alpine Archae­ol­o­gy Project) for more than a decade. This course exam­ines Hannibal’s child­hood and his young sol­dier­ly exploits in Spain. Then it fol­lows him over the Pyre­nees and into Gaul, the Alps, Italy, and beyond, exam­in­ing his vic­to­ries over the Romans, his bril­liance as a mil­i­tary strate­gist, and his lega­cy after the Punic Wars. Along the way, stu­dents will learn about archae­ol­o­gists’ efforts to retrace Hannibal’s jour­ney through the Alps and the cut­ting-edge meth­ods that they are using. Hunt has been on foot over every major Alpine pass and has now deter­mined the most prob­a­ble sites where archae­o­log­i­cal evi­dence can be found to help solve the mys­tery.

You can stream the lec­tures in the audio play­er below.

This course on the great mil­i­tary leader will be added to our col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties as well as our spe­cial­ized list of cours­es on Ancient his­to­ry, lit­er­ary and phi­los­o­phy.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free Clas­sics Cours­es

Free Online His­to­ry Cours­es 

10 Rea­sons Why Hannibal’s Mil­i­tary Genius Still Cap­tures Our Imag­i­na­tion Today

Archaeology, from Dig to Lab and Beyond: A Free Online Course from the University of Reading

in | May 22nd, 2021

From the Uni­ver­si­ty of Read­ing comes Archae­ol­o­gy: from Dig to Lab and Beyond, a free online course that offers “an intro­duc­tion to study­ing archae­ol­o­gy, explor­ing excit­ing dis­cov­er­ies in the Vale of Pewsey, near to Stone­henge and Ave­bury.” In this course, stu­dents will:

Chart the progress of an archae­o­log­i­cal exca­va­tion from dig to lab and beyond.
We’ll show you around our field school at the Vale of Pewsey, a rel­a­tive­ly untouched site com­pared to its famous neigh­bour, Stone­henge.

An exca­va­tion is more than just dig­ging with a trow­el. You’ll inves­ti­gate how and where to dig, col­lect, record and store pre­cious finds and take a clos­er look at what you can learn from a dis­cov­ery once you’ve found it.

One of the most intrigu­ing finds of all is a bur­ial site and you’ll exam­ine the archae­o­log­i­cal meth­ods employed in the study of the dead. How can you recre­ate the life, health and occu­pa­tion of an indi­vid­ual just from their skele­tal remains?

Archae­ol­o­gy: from Dig to Lab and Beyond will be added to our col­lec­tion, 1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties. Stu­dents can enroll here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Pyra­mids of Giza: Ancient Egypt­ian Art and Archaeology–a Free Online Course from Har­vard

The Ancient Astron­o­my of Stone­henge Decod­ed

How Did Han­ni­bal Cross the Alps?: A Short Free Course

Watch the Building of the Eiffel Tower in Timelapse Animation

in Architecture | May 21st, 2021

“They didn’t want it but he built it any­way” — The Pix­ies, “Alec Eif­fel”

When the Eif­fel Tow­er — gate­way to the Paris World’s Fair and cen­ten­ni­al mark­er of the Rev­o­lu­tion — was first designed and built, it was far from beloved. Its cre­ator, Alexan­dre Gus­tave Eif­fel, an engi­neer known for build­ing bridges, faced wide­spread con­dem­na­tion, both from the city’s cre­ative class and in the pop­u­lar press. French writer Guy de Mau­pas­sant summed up the pre­vail­ing sen­ti­ment when he called Eif­fel “a boil­er­mak­er with delu­sions of grandeur.”

Before con­struc­tion began, Mau­paus­sant joined a com­mis­sion of 300 artists, archi­tects, and promi­nent cit­i­zens who opposed in a let­ter what they imag­ined as “a gid­dy, ridicu­lous tow­er dom­i­nat­ing Paris like a gigan­tic black smoke­stack…. [A]ll of our humil­i­at­ed mon­u­ments will dis­ap­pear in this ghast­ly dream.” One crit­ic wrote of it as a “hideous col­umn with rail­ings, this infundibu­li­form chick­en wire, glo­ry to the wire and the slab, arrow of Notre-Dame of bric-a-brac.…”

To these objec­tions, Eif­fel cooly replied it made no sense to judge a build­ing sole­ly from its plans. He also repeat­ed his promise: the tow­er, he said, would sym­bol­ize “not only the art of the mod­ern engi­neer, but also the cen­tu­ry of indus­try and sci­ence in which we are liv­ing.” His “unapolo­get­i­cal­ly indus­tri­al lan­guage,” writes Archi­tiz­er, “did not please all.” But Eif­fel did not boast in vain. When com­plet­ed, the tow­er stood almost twice as high as the Wash­ing­ton Mon­u­ment, then the tallest build­ing in the world at 555 feet.

Not only extreme­ly tall for its time, the Eif­fel Tow­er was also very intri­cate. It would be made of 18,000 wrought iron pieces held togeth­er with 2.5 mil­lion riv­ets, with four curved iron piers con­nect­ed by a lat­tice of gird­ers. After care­ful cal­cu­la­tions, the tow­er’s curves were designed to offer the max­i­mum amount of effi­cient wind resis­tance. 

In the video just above, you can see the tower’s incred­i­ble con­struc­tion from August 1887 to March 1889, mod­eled in an ani­mat­ed time­lapse ani­ma­tion. Its design has far out­last­ed its orig­i­nal­ly short lifes­pan. Slat­ed to be torn down after 20 years, the tow­er stands as tall as ever, though it’s been dwarfed sev­er­al times over by struc­tures that would appall the sig­na­to­ries against Gus­tave Eif­fel in 1887.

Indeed, it is impos­si­ble now to imag­ine Paris with­out Eiffel’s cre­ation. Mau­pas­sant, how­ev­er, spent his life try­ing to do just that. He report­ed­ly had his lunch in the tower’s restau­rant every day, since it was the only place in Paris one could not see it.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Paris in Beau­ti­ful Col­or Images from 1890: The Eif­fel Tow­er, Notre Dame, The Pan­théon, and More (1890)

Build­ing The Eif­fel Tow­er: Three Google Exhi­bi­tions Revis­it the Birth of the Great Parisian Mon­u­ment

Pris­tine Footage Lets You Revis­it Life in Paris in the 1890s: Watch Footage Shot by the Lumière Broth­ers

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him @jdmagness