Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchKonark Sun Temple: Surya's Stone Chariot, Sundial Wheels, and Sand
Episode 12220
European sailors in the Bay of Bengal steered by a dark mass on the Odisha coast they called the Black Pagoda, paired with the whitewashed Jagannath …
6 days, 2 hours ago
Chartres Cathedral: The Colonel Who Rang the Bells and Saved It
Episode 12219
In August 1944, American commanders suspected Germans were spotting artillery from the towers of Chartres Cathedral and ordered it destroyed. Colonel…
6 days, 2 hours ago
Mimar Sinan: The Janissary Architect Who Rivaled Hagia Sophia
Episode 12218
Mimar Sinan, chief architect of the Ottoman Empire, oversaw more than 300 major structures under three sultans and lived to nearly 100, yet his origi…
6 days, 2 hours ago
Home Insurance Building: Chicago's Too-Light First Skyscraper
Episode 12217
In 1884 Chicago officials halted construction of the Home Insurance Building at LaSalle and Adams because it weighed only about a third of what a nor…
6 days, 2 hours ago
John Hancock Tower: Boston's Falling Glass and the Secret Steel Fix
Episode 12216
The 60-story John Hancock Tower in Boston, designed by Henry N. Cobb of I. M. Pei & Partners, was meant to read as a single sheer plane of blue glass…
6 days, 2 hours ago
Temple of Artemis at Ephesus: Arson, Amber Beads, and a Swamp Wonder
Episode 12215
Antipater of Sidon said the sun never looked on anything so grand as the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, yet today it is a single reconstructed column …
6 days, 2 hours ago
Chrysler Building: William Van Alen's Secret Spire and Ruined Career
Episode 12214
The Chrysler Building began with a broken partnership. In 1924 a magazine credited William Van Alen alone for work done with his conservative partner…
6 days, 2 hours ago
Citicorp Center: The Student Question That Saved a Manhattan Tower
Episode 12213
In the late 1960s, brokers for a major bank quietly bought 31 parcels on the Manhattan block between Lexington and Third Avenues and 53rd and 54th St…
6 days, 2 hours ago
The Louvre Pyramid: Pharaoh François, I. M. Pei, and the 666 Myth
Episode 12212
In 1981 French president François Mitterrand launched the Grand Louvre project to fix a museum that was really a former royal palace, a chain of disc…
6 days, 2 hours ago
Andrea Palladio: The Runaway Stonecutter Who Shaped the US Capitol
Episode 12211
Andrea Palladio was born Andrea di Pietro della Gondola in Padua in 1508, the son of a miller. At 13 he was bound to a six-year stonecutting apprenti…
6 days, 2 hours ago