White House vs Pisa Tower

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The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States.

It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the home of each U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. The term 'White House' is often used as a metonym for the president and his advisers. The home was designed by Irish-born architect James Hoban in the neoclassical style. Hoban modelled the construction on Leinster House in Dublin, a building which houses the Oireachtas, the Irish legislature. Construction took place between 1792 and 1800 using Aquia Creek sandstone painted white. When Thomas Jefferson moved into the home in 1801, he (with architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe) added reduced colonnades on each wing which concealed stables and storage. In 1814, during the War of 1812, the mansion had been set ablaze by the British Army in the Burning of Washington, destroying the interior and charring a lot of the exterior. Reconstruction began almost immediately, and President James Monroe moved into the partially rebuilt Executive Residence in October 1817. Exterior building continued with the inclusion of the semi-circular South portico in 1824 and the North portico in 1829. Because of crowding inside the executive order , President Theodore Roosevelt had work offices relocated to the newly constructed West Wing in 1901. Eight years later in 1909, President William Howard Taft enlarged the West Wing and created the first Oval Office, which was finally moved as the section was expanded.



In the main mansion, the third-floor attic was converted into living quarters in 1927 by augmenting the present hip roof with long shed dormers. A newly constructed East Wing was used as a reception area for social occasions; Jefferson's colonnades connected the new wings. East Wing alterations were completed in 1946, creating additional office space. By 1948, the residence's load-bearing exterior walls and internal wood beams were found to be close to collapse. Under Harry S. Truman, the interior chambers were completely dismantled and a new internal load-bearing steel frame constructed within the walls. Once this work was completed, the interior rooms were rebuilt. The modern-day White House complex involves the Executive Residence, West Wing, East Wing, the Eisenhower Executive Office Building--the former State Department, which now houses offices for the president's staff and the vice president--and Blair House, a guest residence. The Executive Residence is made up of six stories--the Ground Floor, State Floor, Second Floor, and Third Floor, as well as a two-story basement. The property is a National Heritage Site owned by the National Park Service and is part of the President's Park. In 2007, it was ranked second on the American Institute of Architects list of'America's Favorite Architecture'.

Source: Wikipedia

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The Leaning Tower of Pisa (Italian: Torre pendente di Pisa) or simply the Tower of Pisa (Torre di Pisa [?torre di ?pi?za]) is the campanile, or freestanding bell tower, of the cathedral of this Italian city of Pisa, known globally for its almost four-degree lean, the result of an unstable foundation. The tower is situated behind the Pisa Cathedral and is the third-oldest structure in the city's Cathedral Square (Piazza del Duomo), following the palace and the Pisa Baptistry. The height of this tower is 55.86 metres (183.27 feet) from the ground on the low side and 56.67 metres (185.93 feet) on the high side. The width of the walls at the base is 2.44 m (8 feet 0.06 in). Its weight is estimated at 14,500 metric tons (16,000 short tons). The tower has 296 or 294 steps; the seventh floor has two fewer steps on the north-facing staircase. The tower began to lean during construction in the 12th century, due to soft ground which could not properly support the structure's weight, and it worsened through the completion of building in the 14th century. By 1990, the tilt had reached 5.5 degrees. The structure was stabilized by remedial work between 1993 and 2001, which decreased the tilt to 3.97 degrees.

Source: Wikipedia