Saturday,
June 13, 2015
Our
morning started with a healthy breakfast and then we drove over to
Schenley Park near the University of Pittsburgh and went to the
Phipps Conservatory. It is a complex of grounds and buildings
founded in 1893 by steel and real-estate magnate Henry Phipps as a
gift to the City of Pittsburgh. It houses beautiful and elaborate
gardens in the 13 room conservatory.
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| Phipps Conservatory |
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| Chihuly glass |
It has outside areas as well
including a children's garden. Phipps is home to the Center for
Sustainable Landscapes and has received the Platinum LEED
certification for net-zero energy, therefore one of the greenest
buildings in the world. They have several pieces of Chihuly glass
interspersed in the gardens and the buildings themselves are
architecturally very beautiful.
We had a lovely lunch in their cafeteria before wandering over to the Cathedral of Learning. Jack had talked to a student who told us about the building. We road the elevator to the 36th floor and got some views. We got back in the elevator and the doors closed but the elevator wasn't going anywhere. After pushing several buttons, the doors finally opened. We had to climb down the 36 flights! Luckily it was down and not up! This building is the tallest educational building in the Western hemisphere and is the centerpiece of the University of Pittsburgh's Oakland neighborhood campus. It contains 2000 rooms. 29 of them are nationality rooms which are decorated as dedications to the nationalities of people who helped shape Pittsburgh. There is an audio recording in each room that describes the interiors. It was very interesting. We visited several of them and really enjoyed the room dedicated to Israel, Switzerland and Turkey.
We also saw but did not enter the Carnegie Art and Natural History museums. Scientists from here discovered in Utah a dinosaur that is named the Carnegie diplodocus ("Dippy").
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| Chocolate tree with cocoa pods. Each pod contains about 20-60 bitter almond sized coca beans which are fermented and roasted. It takes 5 pods to produce 1 pound of coca liquor which is then mixed with milk and sugar to make chocolate |
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| "Kid's" Garden |
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| One of the many ladyslippers, so beautiful |
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| Living Building, net zero energy use |
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| "Passport" mask. Before the days of passports each tribe had the same kind of mask which was carried to identify where you came from |
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| Giant lily pads |
We had a lovely lunch in their cafeteria before wandering over to the Cathedral of Learning. Jack had talked to a student who told us about the building. We road the elevator to the 36th floor and got some views. We got back in the elevator and the doors closed but the elevator wasn't going anywhere. After pushing several buttons, the doors finally opened. We had to climb down the 36 flights! Luckily it was down and not up! This building is the tallest educational building in the Western hemisphere and is the centerpiece of the University of Pittsburgh's Oakland neighborhood campus. It contains 2000 rooms. 29 of them are nationality rooms which are decorated as dedications to the nationalities of people who helped shape Pittsburgh. There is an audio recording in each room that describes the interiors. It was very interesting. We visited several of them and really enjoyed the room dedicated to Israel, Switzerland and Turkey.
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| Cathedral of Learning |
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| Swiss Room |
We also saw but did not enter the Carnegie Art and Natural History museums. Scientists from here discovered in Utah a dinosaur that is named the Carnegie diplodocus ("Dippy").
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