A NOTE ON DIMENSIONS

The following basic dimensions of a few local landmarks should help you get a sense of scale for the buildings we will be studying this term. I will begin in the room we will be using all semester: the Frick auditorium, room 125, is about 45' (' is the standard symbol for feet) wide by 60' long to center stage. Its height is about 30', which suggests that it might have been designed in increments (or modules) of 15'. If so, the room would be three modules wide, four modules long, and two modules high, for a w:l:h ratio of 3:4:2. Classrooms 203 and 204 upstairs are about 25 x 30'. The main reading room of the library is about 35' wide and 58' long. The facade (main entrance) of the Frick Fine Arts Building [see plan in the Sourcebook and view on the website] is 122' wide and 177' long, except for the gallery that projects in the back.

By comparison, the main block of the Cathedral of Learning, without projecting wings, is roughly 225' square: that would be the dimensions of the first 20 floors of the tower portion. The building is 40 stories high, about 535'. The Washington Monument in Washington is 555' high, and the newer skyscrapers in New York and Chicago have exceeded 1000' feet (their stories are about 10' high: a 15-storey skyscraper would be about 150' high). The Commons Room at the base of the Cathedral of Learning is 128 x 175', and 60' high to the top of its vaults. Heinz Chapel, across from the Cathedral of Learning, is 253' high to the top of its spire. The lawn on which the Cathedral of Learning and Heinz Chapel sit covers 14 acres.

Now to some distances: it is approximately 800' from the Frick Building to Hillman Library, and some 1,200' from here to the Cathedral of Learning. It is 4,000' from here to Trees Hall--that's almost exactly three-quarters of a mile (1 mile = 5,280')--so don't schedule swimming after 0040 if you can help it. (From Frick to the "O" at the corner of Oakland and Forbes avenues is 1,600', if you're going to lunch after class instead.) The main "college" portion of Fifth Avenue, from the Cathedral of Learning lawn west to the Carlow College campus, is also 4,000'.

Now to some comparisons. The largest of the three Great Pyramids of Egypt is 756' long on each side. It is 480' high, and its base covers 13 acres. If moved to Oakland, it would fill up nearly all of the Cathedral of Learning lawn. It would be just 50' lower than the Cathedral top, and it would take you about as long to walk along one side as it does for you to walk from Frick to Hillman.

The main chamber of the Pantheon in Rome is about as wide as the Commons Room in the Cathedral of Learning: 143', but it is also 143' high, much taller than the Commons Room inside. Hence its total interior volume is much greater. The Pantheon walls are nearly 15' thick, so its main block measures 172' in length and width, plus its porch gives it an overall length of 228'. The Gothic cathedrals such as Chartres and Amiens were some 200' wide and as much as 500' long inside. The vaults of Amiens reach about 140': as high as a 14-storey modern skyscraper!

The most famous Renaissance building, St. Peter's basilica in Rome is about 700' long by 450' wide, bigger than all the Gothic cathedrals. But some of the richest monuments were surprisingly small. The Pazzi Chapel would nicely fit in our auditorium: 36' wide by 60' long, except that its inner volume rises to about 65', over twice as high as our ceiling. One of the most exquisite of all the buildings we will study in this course is, however, ideally dimensioned for this building. The Tempietto of S. Pietro in Montorio in Rome would fit perfectly in the rotunda of our building (in the Museum portion, just off the cloister): it is just 15' wide inside, about 27' in total exterior diameter, including columns, and rises to about 45', including its stepped base. That would just fit within the vaults in our rotunda, which is based--not coincidentally?--on Italian Renaissance architecture to begin with.