42 stories, facts and figures you should know about Pitt’s Cathedral of Learning

While working on the latest edition of Pitt Magazine, a celebration of the Cathedral of Learning on the 100th anniversary of its groundbreaking, we were inundated with stories : about the people who built the structure and those who have studied there for decades, historic research breakthroughs and athletic achievements, and so many other tall tales about the University's favorite building.

We couldn't begin to tell them all, but here are some of our favorite fun facts, figures and anecdotes - one for each floor (and in no particular order).

1. Charles Zeller Klauder, architect of the Cathedral, Heinz Memorial Chapel and other campus buildings across the U.S., left a wide-reaching legacy in brick, stone and steel. But he also left a living legacy in the Klauder triplets, who graduated from Pitt in 2022 and studied in the very building their great-great-great-uncle designed.

2. The 535-foot Cathedral is the world's second-tallest university building, trailing only the main building of Lomonosov Moscow State University in Russia. The Cathedral is also among the tallest Gothic Revival (or neo-Gothic) structures globally. During construction - its frame in place, but interior not yet finished - the Cathedral was Pittsburgh's tallest building from 1929 to 1932, until completion of downtown's Gulf Tower.

3. The Cathedral's name reportedly came from a Scottish employee of the architect Klauder named John McMahon, whom Chancellor Bowman said called the building a "Cadral of Larnin." Bowman reluctantly adopted the name only when it caught on and he recognized its public relations value. (An alternate telling has the name coming from Charles D. Armstrong, a cork company president, at a Board of Trustees meeting.)

4. In 1907, architect Henry Hornbostel, the designer of the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall and Museum, won a national competition to transform Pitt's campus into a grand academic acropolis. He wanted a collection of stately classical buildings perched above the city, echoing the temples of ancient Greece. The design reflected the ideals of higher education at the time: permanence, order and intellectual achievement. But it never came to fruition as architectural tastes shifted and, in the 1920s, Chancellor John G. Bowman championed a radically different idea.

5. In 1925, when tasked with how to fund Cathedral construction, Chancellor Bowman found a solution that was as much about inspiration as fundraising. Working with Marcus Aaron, president of Pittsburgh's Board of Education, Bowman launched the now famous "buy a brick" campaign. Nearly 97,000 schoolchildren from Western Pennsylvania each contributed a dime, often accompanied by letters describing how they had earned the money through chores, odd jobs and hard work. The $9,700 raised was only a small portion of the Cathedral's eventual $10 million cost. Yet the campaign's true value was symbolic. Each child received a certificate recognizing them as part of the "fellowship of the builders," and their names were preserved in a permanent book of donors.

6. What does the Cathedral have in common with the Empire State Building, the Washington National Cathedral and the Pentagon? All are covered in Indiana limestone. Durable, workable and consistent, limestone from the Salem formation that stretches across several Midwestern states became known as the "nation's building stone" after a series of fires in the second half of the 19th century ushered in a limestone building boom.

[Read more about how the Cathedral became a symbol of awe and inspiration.]

7. Over the decade or so that it took for the Cathedral to go from concept to completion, a number of other Pittsburgh landmarks representative of the city landscape also took shape. Downtown's Gulf Tower opened in 1932, while the iconic Three Sisters bridges also were part of the build-up. The Seventh Street (Andy Warhol) and Ninth Street (Rachel Carson) bridges were completed in 1926, while a rebuild of the Sixth Street (Roberto Clemente) bridge was completed in late 1928.