Pyramid of the
Sun and Moon
Mexico City

Old Cathedral
Mexico City

Brain Candy
The world's tallest building,
The Petronas Tower,
Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia,
stretches up 1,483 feet.

The previous record holder,
the Sears Tower in Chicago,
still has the highest occupied floor,
200ft higher than The Petronas Tower.

The Pentagon is the largest office building in the world.

250 lightbulbs are replaced there every day.

New York still has the largest
number of skyscrapers in the world,
140.

Chicago comes second with 68.

Russia has the largest number
of libraries in the world.

At 96,000,
there's one for every 1,500 people.

St Sophia,
Istanbul,
held the record for the largest
self-supporting dome for 1,600 years.

The only royal palace in the USA
is Iolani in Hawaii.

Soap opera producer,
Aaron Spelling's 123 room mansion
is the size of a football field.

The first lighthouse in the world
was the Pharos in Alexandria,
ancient Egypt.

One of the seven wonders of the world,
it was the equivalent of 45 storeys high,
and is still the tallest ever built.

The largest shopping mall in the world
is the West Edmonton mall in Alberta,
Canada.

There are 800 stores and restaurants,
26 cinemas,
and the largest indoor lake in the world,
with four submarines for visitors
to explore the depths.

Five London Bridges
have been built on the site
since the first was constructed in 60AD.

The world's largest ketchup bottle
is the Catsup Bottle in Collinsville,
Illinois,
170ft high.

It was saved from demolition in 1995.

Gothic was originally used as a term of abuse
by Italian renaissance artists,
refering
to the inferior work
of the Goths north of the Alps.

Builders in the USA use
on average 10-14 medium-sized trees
to build a three-bedroom house.

Celebrated Barcelona architect Antoni Gaudi
was killed by a tram.
St John the Divine,
New York,
is the largest gothic cathedral in
the world,
601 ft long,
146 ft wide.

The height of the Eiffel Tower varies
by up to 6 inches,
depending on the weather.

In 1996 63% of New York's bridges
were classed as decaying.

The Aztecs mixed animal blood with cement
to act as mortar in their buildings.

There's 15,000 miles of neon
in downtown Las Vegas.

The largest pyramid in the world
is in Cholulu de Riuadahia,
Mexico,
built in 6-12 AD.

It is 25 acres in area,
177ft tall.

Since it opened in 1937,
the Golden Gate bridge has seen 1,200 people try
to commit suicide by jumping the 250ft drop.

Only 23 are known
to have survived.

The Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas
has the largest atrium in the world,
big enough
to hold nine Boeing 747s.

Bricks are the oldest
manufactured building material in the world,
first used 7,000 years ago by the Egyptians.

French sculptor Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi
modelled the face of the Statue of Liberty
on that of his mother,
and the body on that of his girlfriend.

The White House is covered
with 570 gallons of white paint.

The world's only flying saucer launch pad
is in St Paul,
Alberta,
Canada.

The longest suspension bridge in the world,
the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge in Japan,
was opened in 1998.

It is 3,911m long,
580m longer than the previous record holder,
the Humber Bridge.

Lifts are the safest form
of transportation in the world,
with only one fatality
per 100 million miles travelled.

Stairs are five times more likely
to kill you.

There's enough stone in the Great Wall of China
to girdle the equator eight feet deep.

Architecture Week 2001 is funded
and managed
by the ARTS COUNCIL
of England in association
with the RIBA. Architecture Week 2001
is endorsed by CABE.

tel: 020 7973 6469
fax: 020 7973 6581
email: archweek@artscouncil.org.uk