Brad Feld

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The Cathedral of Learning

Nov 17, 2005
Category Places

I’m at CMU today for the National Center of Women & Information Technology semi-annual meeting (I’m chairman).  We just had a fantastic keynote from Nick Donofrio – EVP of Innovation and Technology at IBM, a 42 year IBM veteran, and a strong supporter / advocate of woman in information technology.

After wandering around enemy territory (the CMU computer science and robotics buildings – as an MIT grad, I kept expecting someone to notice that a spy from another school was snooping around – they didn’t notice me, they were too busy looking at all the Google flyers advertising for jobs) I settled into the conference room at Newell Simon Hall.  I noticed this huge building out the window and overheard someone mention that it is called The Cathedral of Learning and was the second tallest academic building in the world.  A quick search on Wikipedia turned up an awesome amount of information on this building which was commissioned in 1921 and finished in 1937 (fundraising started in 1925 – I hope the money was raised before October 1929).  The building is on the University of Pittsburgh’s main campus and the view is stunning from the third flow of CMU’s Newell Simon Hall.

I love the idea of a building called “The Cathedral of Learning”, regardless of which campus it’s located on.