The Cathedral of Learning is a tall building on the University of Pittsburgh's campus that has a gothic exterior and contains classrooms. From what I have heard, I believe most of these classrooms are devoted to the study of various languages and cultures. Visitors can go as high as the 36th floor to get a view of Oakland which is the home of both Carnegie Mellon and U Pitt.
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This is the entrence to the cathedral that faces Parkman Avenue (i.e. closest side to Downtown Pittsburgh)
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I like to think of this as the main entrance because it has a fountain in and stairs in front, so it seems grander than the other entrances.
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This should give you an idea of how tall the cathedral of learing is. The highest floor open to the public is the 36th, but I believe it has more than 40 floors altogether.
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The first three floors continue the gothic architecture of the outside of the building. This is a picture of the elevators on the first floor (they are approximately in the middle of the building).
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This is a picture of the lobby on the first floor. The first three floors (i.e. those that have gothic architecture) are very dark, esspectially in comparison with the light shinning in through their windows. This made it very hard for the camera to adjust, so most of the pictures I took of these floors came out very blurry. Since the lobby is so beautiful I decided not to delete this one.
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This picture was taken looking down a hallway on the first floor. You cannot see this in the picutre, but the windows at the end of the hallway are stained glass.
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The elevator going up to the 36th floor. The lights above the doors noted witch floor it was currently passing and the elevator gave a ding after each floor. Since it moves fairly quickly the dings seem to come about once a second.
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Carnegie Mellon, the Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural Science, Flagstaff Hill, and the Phipps conservatory as viewed from the 36th floor of the Cathedral of Learning. (click to enlarge)
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My dorm is the red brick building accross the street from the rest of Carnegie Mellon's campus. The shadow in the lower left corner belongs to the Cathedral of Learning. (click to enlarge)
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This pitcture faces south, towards the Monongahela River (which can be glimpsed on the right side of the picture near the horizon). (click to enlarge)
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The section of Schenly Park accross the street from the Cathedral of Learning (The rest of the park is a large swath of land up the street shown in the upper left hand corner) and the main branch of the Public Library (the building on the left hand side of the picture). (click to enlarge)
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Schenly Park, The Carnegie Museums and Library. (click to enlarge)
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Carnegie Mellon's Campus (click to enlarge)
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There are about five rooms on the 36th floor. This window into one of them is accross the hall from the short, decorated staircase which leads into a study nook on the 35th floor. To the best of my knowledge, these rooms are empty most of the time.
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This is one of the four windows (two on this side and two on the side dirrectly behind the camera) which can be accessed by the public on the 36th floor. The basic set-up of the cathedral is to ring each floor with classrooms and have the hallway, elevators and stair-cases in the middle. Thus, I was not able to look out any windows on floors 4-34.
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This is the view looking towards Shadyside (northeast of the tower). Carnegie Mellon is on the opposite side of the tower, so it cannot be viewed from here. (click to enlarge image)
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This is a church about a block away from the Cathedral of Learning, it's steeple can be seen from CMU's campus, though it is not the tallest church in the area. (click to enlarge image)
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This is a picture looking northwest from the Cathedral of Learning (the opposite dirrection from CMU). The hazy buildings in the upper left hand corner are part of Downtown Pittsburgh. (click to enlarge)
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This is the wall above the short ornate stair case leading to a study nook on the 35th floor (I like the stained glass).
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The affore mentioned, short ornate stair-case leading to a study nook on the 35th floor (There was one student working there when I took this picture).
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The huge stair-case known as stairwell G which goes all the way up to the 36th floor (this picture was taken on the 35th floor).
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The window in stairwell G on the 35th floor was open (there are bars in front of it to prevent suicides), so I stuck the camera through the bars and took a shot looking down at the street.
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Looking strait down.... (the tiles at the bottom of this shot are part of the roof of floor 16 and line up with the floor on the 17th story)
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Looking down stairwell G to about the 21th floor (it is moved a little to the side on that floor)
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An office on the 21st floor facing downtown (what a view!)
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I thought the stairwell was really pretty, so I took a picture of the twists in the railing...
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... and the details in the railing on each switch back.
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Looking up the stairs from the 21st floor
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The tiling on the roof of the 16th floor (seen here from a window on the stairwell at the 17th floor.
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Looking down the stairwell from the 17th floor (to about the 4th)
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An add for a Russian Film festival on the floor that houses offices and classrooms for Germanic and Slavic Languages. I believe most of the Cathedral of Learning is used for language and cultural.
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A sign listing faculty who teach German, Russian, etc.
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I am told the Pittsburgh Rowing team likes to use the cathedral for stairs workouts...
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Looking up the stairs on the fourth floor to about the 17th floor.
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The short staircase which leads from the whitwashed, linoleum floored fourth floor to the third floor, which is much more in the gothic style.
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The Nationality Rooms (these are all on the 3rd floor and I don't know why they were given these names)
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Looking through a window on the third floor towards a church accross the courtyard (a wedding was in progress there the day I took these pictures)
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That same window from farther back (there is a bench blocking the bottom of the window)
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The church accross the courtyard as seen from a window on the second floor which is bellow and a little to the side of the window on the third floor.
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Looking down at the elevator waiting area on the first floor from a balcony on the second floor.
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Looking strait ahead from that balcony.
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A study nook on the second floor
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This is a hole inside the building which allows more light to come in. I am looking upwards from the second floor in this picture.
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The exit I came out of (not the one I entered the building through). This is the closest exit to 5th Avenue.
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To give you an idea of how tall the Cathedral of Learning is...
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The sign on 5th Avenue telling which building this is.
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The third floor window in this picture is the one I viewed the church from the third floor through. The one down and to the left in this picture is the one I took the picture from the second floor through.
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