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I will say each and every electronic component you use is an engineering marvel. It might be your phone or your laptop or even the simple calculator. Because of our easy access to electronics, we many a times forget or underestimate the hidden feats of engineering , the extensive research work and the countless developments that have been devoted to bring them to reality.I believe there is no other field of engineering or science which has seen the same pace of development. From its inception, a bare century ago to the modern high speed low-power electronics we see today is a wonder indeed.To produce any gadget, there is a whole industry behind it and thousands of patents that make it possible. You need to obtain the purest form of silicon possible with impurity less than the order of parts per billion. Then you need to manufacture silicon wafers and on them synthesize millions of transistors as per the design requirements. The synthesis of chips requires semiconductor fabs that in themselves require investment of about a billion dollars.For designing, you need people familiar with Microelectronics, Digital Design,VLSI designing, Electronic Design Automation, Computer Architects. From transistors we build gates. Using gates, we build the simple full adder on combinational level and flip flops using sequential circuits. We build higher modules such as decoders, muxes, registers and counters. To build even the 4- bit full adder, you need to look at trade off's between hardware and speed. And then move on to processor designing and memory optimization.To keep up with the Moore's law, innovation needs to happen here at breathtaking speeds. For most people, an 8 gigabytes RAM is just a great feature of their computer. But for engineers, it is months of work to scale down the transistor size and deal with negative effects that arise at that level.A phone may not look as cool as a space shuttle or the Golden Gate bridge. But the design behind them is as spectacular, if not more.PS: one of my first answers on Quora. Please help me improve it. I haven't mentioned much about the software aspect as I do not have much idea.

It's very real! Somewhat overlooked until it was realised it contained cogs. Under X-ray, its complexity becomes more clear, my jaw dropped when I first saw this. It was found in a shipwreck off the small island of Antikythera and thought to have been transported from Crete to the mainland. This point will become more relevant when we consider earlier Minoan astronomy and engineering, which was state-of-the-art.The first example of a gear train I’m aware of used for computation, the other example being the south-facing chariot (a differential), also significant and of a similar dating, but very different function. The mechanism is complex, it works to compute (calculate) the position of the celestial bodies! What a thing. Man has been looking up to the skies to keep time for millennia before this, this is the equivalent to a supercomputer in antiquity, with it, you can keep an accurate calendar, increase food production - plant seeds and harvest at the optimal time, predict eclipses using Saros cycles when the celestial bodies return to their original position (for a little wow factor and probably statecraft when the sun turns black as you said it would, an eclipse), know when the games are going to be so the athletes can train and generally be organised with clockwork accuracy. I’ve posted this to give a context of what was known about the astronomical cycles before and are used by the Antikythera mechanism itself.Now consider the only example I’m aware of that precedes it. It is Minoan, circa 1500BCE, Crete. Granted it is not as sophisticated, it's manual, not even mechanical. However, is also a remarkable device and more for determining the periods that the later mechanism uses. Importantly, it shows an early stepping stone towards the mechanism.This is casting from Minoan Moulds of Palaikastro, it would allow many copies to made in likely bronze. It performs many of the functions of the later mechanism and more importantly shows that these orbital periods were understood earlier. The Minoans demonstrate a very good understanding of orbits. 4-year Olympiads, Saros cycles seem to be known to them, they seem to be attempting to work out cycles far beyond a human lifetime, a Great Year - Wikipedia by example, that occurs due to precession of the equinox as the Earth wobbles backwards, which we know today to be a 25,772-year cycle, it is evident in iconography (artwork, that follows the astronomical ages using the signs of the zodiac), one doesn’t need to observe a full cycle to determine the period, it can be estimated however accurate measurements do need to be made separate by ideally a century.The Minoan written language remains undeciphered and their main writing media, papyrus is lost to time, both the Babylonians and Minoans are marking the astronomical ages in art. As an aside an interesting Chinese account that relates to a merchant visiting the Great Mother of the West (possibly a Minoan priestess), seems to imply a peach only grew once every three thousand years to bring in a new age (a new zodiac sign) that may imply it was possibly estimated to 36,000 years in very ancient times (which is a period estimated by Plato[1], all things considered not a bad, which sounds about right with the measurement instrumentation available, we know the Great Year to be 25,772 years. The Minoans seem to know it is a 26,000 year period, a count of 26 is repeatedly being shown in iconography of Griffons flanking Mother Earth.The device on the right is for lunar periods (as shown). Which is associated with Potnia Theron (Artemis/the Mistress of Animals) virgin daughter, the Moon. Middle, Mother Earth, Gaia and her son (left), the Sun, Apollo/the Master of Animals. The solar function being the left device. These are three of their four Minoan deities the other being Venus (consort to the Sun), that is referenced as two complete cycles of the lunar moon device around the solar device, an Octaeteris with five visibility cycles of Venus. The relationships describe the orbits, virgin daughter Moon is bound to Mother Earth, consort to the Sun in orbits. Minoans use the deities to express cardinal direction and seasons also (based on an even older but simpler system dating to incredibly, 9000BCE, they likely preserve this tradition as they have a need to navigate the high seas as in times past people moved to follow sources of food with the seasons). Amazingly some of the same symbols are preserved for over five millennia (these are some of the first ideas recorded in stone and represent two of the first examples of proto-writing which both record a system of cardinal direction).Remarkable a count of days in the year was known at this time, humans had a calendar in prehistory and shows that astronomy was being studied with a scientific approach very early, importantly this was recorded in stone (as it was clearly important too), the first sophisticated concept we know about today, a calendar. The Antikythera mechanism is the culmination of this work an improving model of the solar system that can be observed.I’ve written this article, to explain why these ancient astronomers are setting a coarse towards the Antikythera mechanism and the limited earlier archaeology that shows they are on this trajectory.The above Minoan casting stone is to make many copies, for those that can at least afford the metal to produce it (its an expensive device), likely for large farms and landowners (which will have passed by the female line it is the ladies that keep records and study astronomy professionally in this civilisation), the priestess probably had something more sophisticated produced by the palace workshops. The middle device Gaia, I’m not entirely sure how she was used, possibly a form of a ruler to measure (excuse the pun: Demeter), this device could potentially be used for trigonometry to express angles, e.g. sine and cosine as fractions, handy for orbital calculations and tp determine latitude at sea. Thoughts on what the Gaia device maybe or function most welcome, please leave me a comment.We can see seven days on the lunar device to the right (indenture with 7 markers), a lunar phase (reinforced by other Minoan artefacts), the big thing is it shows the very first KNOWN use of a week and we still use this convention today. The mechanism likely flip-flops in the solar device on the left before advancing one position. The purpose of this is probably to allow a day to be added for alternative months of 29 then 30, for a 29 and one half-day month (superbly accurate for the time, 29.53059 days by modern standard). On this Minoan earring dated to around 1700BCE, Crete, that confirms this, we can see 7 days (sun) and nights (owls), four moon phases express by 2 monkeys and 2 dogs (forward and backward facing, waning and waxing moon phases, so four weeks of seven day: 28 days, plus one red lozenge bead which implies to add a day and when things are shown at the periphery to divide by this number, 1/2 day and a 29.5days in total within the full moon device itself. Minoan artefacts may look pretty, but they often encode astronomical periods.Many consider that the later Greek astronomical knowledge came from Babylon, I think Minoa is a more likely the original source or at least there is technology transfer which may have been through Babylonian astronomers or from those on the islands to the mainland, but this is less easy to establish, the Minoan written papyrus are lost to time and the few records on clay remain undeciphered, any connection will have to be established by examining the artefacts such as these. It is also worth noting that these astronomical periods are often recorded in fresco borders and jewellery as above (its worth counting everything in Minoan art as it often relates to astronomy or Nature - an early form of physics which is surprising good).This is confirmed by other Minoan artefacts. The significance of the cast stone device on the left is as a calendar to calculate an Olympiad, just like the Antikythera mechanism! Update: Time to add a leap month by jumping the bull. Minos (leader) being last to leave the arena, perhaps this is where the four-year team in the office is derived, possibly a very old convention.Notes: 49 lunar phases shown on the horizontal borders: an Olympiad. We could assume that there are 3 years of 12, and each fourth year a 13th month is added, this may be what the so-called Snake goddess represents, Ophiuchus - Wikipedia, considered the 13th Zodiac sign.With this, the lunar and solar calendar can be aligned, and can keep a 365.25 day year as we do today. All civilisations gravitate towards this as it can be repeatably observed, but these artefacts are some of the earliest to show it was articulated.I’ve recently realised what the 14 verticle devices may be. When added to the four-year Olympiad, it could represent an 18-year Saros cycles, when the celestial bodies (their deities) return to their original position. Although not shown here an Octaeteris is another important period, 99 lunar months, or 8 years plus one or two days. This is 9 years using inclusive counting, Minos literally means ‘nine’ (years in office?), also shown on bird-man below which is much older, could this convention span this huge length of time, it appears they did have devices to record the most important information, even before writing!These very old systems have a purpose, to keep order and a calendar using natural cycles. Working against mother nature is a bad idea. It is also worth noting that the very earliest accounts suggest a memory of older games which were introduced to the mainland by Harkales (thumb) and his brothers around 1,250 BCE (the Idaean Dactyl (mythology) - Wikipedia from Crete. the ‘fingers’ and founders of the Minoan civilisation according to mythology). According to these accounts, the games were brought to the islands from Hyperborea - Wikipedia, modern material analysis shows the Cornish tin being alloyed with local copper (Cyprus), one can postulate how it was getting there, by sea through exchange through adjacent ports and islands being a possible method. This is inferred by mythology, hyperboreans were invited to attend the celebrations at Delos to Apollo, one young girl with her 9-foot brothers (giants, possible had gold pointy hats) came but as they didn’t return, gifts were sent thereafter relayed through adjacent ports. The reason I explain this, is those that need to navigate at sea study astronomy.I’ve been trying to track down the first use of cogs and gear trains (the above is the only thing that bears some resemblance to a gear, before the mechanism itself, so if you are aware of any early reference please do drop me a comment). The mechanism is very sophisticated which suggests there may be something more simple before this, I like that in the Minoan casting stone you can see a seed of an idea for two devices intermeshing but it is not in itself a gear. From what I have read about the mechanism, most consider this to be a built over many iterations, so hopeful the archaeologists will find other examples. There are accounts of such mechanisms but it would be useful to know when the transition from more simple pulleys arrangements (actuated by weight) that may have preceded it, too much more capable gears occurred, it is somewhere between these two devices, but exactly when is not clear, I have found a single Minoan seal that may show a single gear.Optical lenses are known on Crete from at least 1450BCE (revised dating), they are precision ground from rock crystal and could have been used for optical magnification to study the stars and celestial bodies, their first use may have been to observe coast approaches (which is exactly the same development steps that the telescope went through later in history). They are of superior optical quality to a single Babylonian example found much later and are found in quantity. They were found stored in a cave near to a peak sanctuary, peak sanctuaries are known from 2,000BCE where likely these observations were made and written down. There is also evidence of instruments to make angular measurements (labrys, maybe an angular measurement tool, by example, to measure the angle between the horizon to navigational stars such as Orion's belt to determine latitude). The shaft has regular markings and the double axe head slides along the shaft, one can also trace the technology transfer of the double axe to Phoenicia, that were also good at high sea navigation and reestablished the trade networks after bronze age collapse. The priest of the double axe at Delphi also being a potential route whereby this earlier astronomical knowledge could have been transferred to the mainland. I note that many Greeks philosophers that are interested in mathematics, astronomy or engineering hail from or visit the Greek islands. The point being they have angular measurement tools to track the passage of stars and celestial bodies, geometry was initially based on the study of land which the Priestess seem to be doing from their beak santuaries (likely to establish quota (tax) for farms which we know they did do).There is a general sense (in Minoan times) that the population were fascinated by early machines and the artefacts suggest instrumentation for astronomy, navigation and timekeeping. I would place there understanding of physics (dynamics and optics) to that of around the time of Newton, and no I’m not kidding! The crescent wedge shape lens shown above will recreate a natural rainbow and there is also rock-crystal prisms found at an Ida mountain workshop! It appears that the prism was invented in Crete and not by/in Newton’s time, which is extraordinary, its as if the priestess observe something in nature and want to understand how it works and task the workshops with producing devices, in this case to reproduce a rainbow. There is a lot of evidence of models in the Minoan archaeological archive. They seem to do things at a small scale to confirm there initial thinking. This may have applied to model the celestial bodies, nothing too fancy a candle (the sun), the Earth, the Moon and see what happens in the shadows and confirm the observation, they seem to have a really good grasp of the moon phases, saros cycles which must have come from either study and or modelling. The casting stone shown above is 95% accurate in predicting eclipses for example.The palaces have light and dark rooms it would appear to study the properties of light. They are curious about the natural world and how it is organised (the underlying rules). Their engineering precision is good, by example, there is a seal that shows that divider callipers are being used and from this you can do a lot (a standard measure), the milling bit is 30 micrometers (0.03mm) and tool placement is around 5–10 micrometres (0.005mm) for the finest pieces, as shown on the Pylos Combat Agate seal. Their tooling and instrumentation is well ahead of its time.Note the use of extendable poles at peak sanctuaries, in this way, they can line up targets using points, take measurements and record the positions of celestial bodies and stars. Venus was studied as it crossed the sun in the reflection of water bowls (shown). There is a lot of evidence when taken collectively to show that astronomical periods are being measured, recorded and articulated when you look at Minoan archaeology holistically. We can even tell when this artefact was made just from the iconography (artwork), the age of Ares the Ram, 2000–1BCE, they mark the astronomical age they are in and do seem to acknowledge these very long periods well beyond their own lifetime.The islands study what we would call earth science today, magnetic declination to true North (established by solar observation and astronomy) is recorded in Minoan building orientation to specifically magnetic North. There is a single land-based example of a compass dated to 1650BCE that specifically shows the off-set angle to true North (Minoans use fractions to express angles 1/total) that they could readily employ in calculations, although generally not well-known, the Idaean Dactyl (mythology) - Wikipedia (fingers) according to mythology discovered the lodestone, magnetite is available from Skyros that when stuck by (Zeus’) lightening becomes magnetic, a lodestone (probably the most valuable commodity in the entire world at the time). They have at least a method of establishing latitude and bearing (at sea), birds which are associated with West and East (see peak sanctuary) likely used to estimate longitude as they gaze towards their home port from a cage on a ship’s deck. The Marine archaeologists recognise that Minoan ships undertook high-sea passage but it is not known how they did this, one need to consider what they actually had on the land.To encode the mechanism all of the celestial periods need to be known and it appears were being studied. The point is that before someone can consider building a mechanical device there is a much longer and involved process to at least define the periods the mechanism uses, the Metonic cycle - Wikipedia by example is 19 years, this will not have been determining in a single person lifetime, rather is something that will have more likely taken centuries to potentially identify this pattern. Meton articulated this in 432 BC (a few centuries before the mechanism was built) but it seems to be known before this in Babylon and it is likely discovered in Minoa. Astronomy does seem to have been studied on the islands and for me is a better fit than this astronomical knowledge coming to Greece from Babylon, possible via the teaching of the Delphic Oracle with priests of the double axe.I do think it likely that the Minoan priestess would have commissioned the palace workshops to create devices to assist them with keeping an accurate calendar, that will be more sophisticated to that evident above and it is generally thought that the Antikythera mechanism is being shipped from Crete. The priestess are a little obsessive with not only these natural cycles but statistics, they set quota for farms and other production units and monitor variance, everything is sealed with a mark of the producer and checksums are used to confirm the total manifest, for example. The calendar may be part of their planning tools to optimise and increase yields, one of the functions of peak sanctuaries may be to survey the land (farms) to set quota.There are accounts of very early machines such as automaton (statues that moved all by themselves and entertained audiences, even one that could apparently walk down the street) and Talos a machine that threw rocks which sounds like a catapult, even a Palace door which opened by fire (steam) which is thought to be built by Minoan architects, but NO actual examples of these have been found, just accounts, but I think these are likely based on pulley type systems. Perhaps either a water computer (actually this method was used by the Bank of England to model the economy) or system of pulleys may have been used to simulate these astronomical cycles once they had been established and possibly informed later designs which in the fullness of time eventually led to the much more sophisticated Antikythera mechanism, which in no way reduces its significance, it is a mechanical engineering wonder, but my own view is it is a refined device that would have taken many iterations and could be the culmination of hundreds if not millennia of study and refinement. Those that have reproductions of the mechanism itself all comment on this.A closing thought, this is the bird-man from Çatalhöyük which was settled around 7,200 BCE, who would become the Master of Animal (Apollo), the Sun flying across the sky giving south at midday! Consider the crosshatched background, it looks simple early art, however, it provides a count of the number of days in the YEAR! This is confirmed on a second count of the entwined snakes. These people can’t write but they are clearly numerate and are studying astronomy and measure the periods from key datums at a basic level (humans have most probably done this for some time), also to solstice (sun highest or lowest in the sky) and equinox (of equal day and night); collectively giving seasons. In time later cultures and civilisation would refine these periods and would eventually become teeth on a gear wheel within the Antikythera mechanism which express the relationship with the other celestial bodies as a gearing ratio in a mechanical computer. However, before this can be done, these relationships need to be understood and in my opinion, it is the collective work of generations of astronomers working over millennia to better understand and refine these periods. Ancient accounts refer to a golden age (e.g. before copper) with one common language perhaps this is referring to an unambiguous language of numeracy and mathematics (to count in its early form) and astronomy (to assist with navigating our world), and it is with this that came timekeeping. I think birdman is as important as the Antikythera mechanism, it shows early farmers had a calendar to know when to plant seed and harvest to increase yields.Every astronomer of any age from prehistory or in the future would look at the Antikythera mechanism in wonder, that’s how everything is organised, the first model and defined in a machine that can confirm the assumptions made! Humankind has a model of time and our solar system, where everything was, where it is and can be confirmed by observation, and it will be can be predicted. It is an extraordinary device.John Wester and Jeremy Toms kindly flagged up Clickspring which is a how-to guide to reproduce the Antikythera mechanism, the video series are excellent. I draw your attention to the lunar mechanisms which has an off-centre cog and complex slot mechanism to correctly simulate elliptical lunar motion (which is non-linear), the gear chain itself is a mechanical engineering wonder. The point being that it is non-linear, the result is the interplay between two separate mechanisms. It is well worth watching the videos, it is quite an extraordinary device both mechanically and for the astronomical algorithms, it encapsulates. Chris (the producer and maker) explores all the tooling they used to make the mechanism, its fascinating. He starts off using modern equipment but as he gains insight develops hand tools to accomplish the tasks.Footnotes[1] Great Year - Wikipedia

ON A WARM AND RAINY THURSDAY EVENING IN JULY 1941, inside a War Department office in Washington, a small group of Army officers hastily assembled for a meeting and listened in disbelief to the secret plan outlined by their commander.The general spoke in the velvety Southern accent of his native Arkansas. He was not in uniform -- Army policy kept officers in civilian clothes so as to disguise from Congress the burgeoning military population in Washington -- but he cut an immaculate figure, with his trim build, combed-back, graying hair and neatly groomed mustache. Over the past eight months, the officers of the Army's Construction Division had grown accustomed to bold and quick action from their chief. At age 49, Brig. Gen. Brehon Burke Somer-vell had earned a reputation as a smooth but ruthless operator. "Dynamite in a Tiffany box" was how an associate later described him. Now Somervell turned his eyes -- "the keenest, shrewdest, most piercing eyes one is likely to meet," in the words of one observer -- toward his chief of design, Lt. Col. Hugh "Pat" J. Casey.The War Department needed a new headquarters, Somervell said. The building he wanted to create was too big to fit in Washington and would have to go across the Potomac River in Arlington. It would be far larger than all the great structures of the city, including the U.S. Capitol. Somervell wanted a headquarters big enough to hold 40,000 people, with parking for 10,000 cars. It would contain 4 million square feet of office space -- almost twice as much as the Empire State Building. Yet it must be no more than four stories high -- a tall building would obstruct views of Washington and require too much steel, urgently needed for battleships and weapons.The War Department would occupy the new headquarters within half a year, Somervell instructed. "We want 500,000 square feet ready in six months, and the whole thing ready in a year," the general said. Somervell ended the meeting with orders to have the basic design plans for the building by Monday morning.Washington was consumed by war anxiety. Three weeks earlier, Adolf Hitler, already in control of much of Europe, had launched a surprise attack on the Soviet Union. President Franklin D. Roose-velt, alarmed by Nazi gains, had declared a national emergency on May 27. The War Department in Washington was growing at an explosive rate, its 24,000 workers spread in 17 buildings, including apartment buildings, private homes and several rented garages. Gen. George C. Marshall, the Army chief of staff, needed a quick solution and turned to Somervell to construct temporary buildings for the headquarters. At a congressional hearing July 17, Rep. Clifton A. Woodrum, a powerful Virginia congressman, signaled interest in finding an "overall solution" to the War Department's problem. Somervell took that as a signal for a permanent fix, and the Pentagon, as it would become known, was launched that evening.The first problem was where to put it -- "incidentally, the largest office building in the world," Casey later noted dryly. Energetic and experienced, Casey was one of the Army's most brilliant engineers, and he quickly saw big problems with the location Somervell had chosen. Washington-Hoover Airport, at the foot of the 14th Street Bridge in Arlington, had just been replaced with a modern airfield, National Airport, about a mile downriver. Somervell -- eager to win the Virginian's blessing for the project -- had seized upon the old airport site, but the low-lying land, which was subject to flooding, worried Casey.When Casey asked Somervell whether other sites near the airport might be used, the general did not rule it out. Scanning a map, Casey's practiced eye quickly zeroed in on a 67-acre tract about a half-mile upriver from Washington-Hoover. It was Arlington Farm, just east of Arlington National Cemetery. Like the adjacent cemetery, the land had been part of the grand estate of Robert E. Lee that had been confiscated by Union troops in the spring of 1861 for the defense of Washington. In 1900, Congress transferred 400 acres of the Arlington estate to the Department of Agriculture to use as an experimental farm. In September 1940, Roosevelt approved the return of Arlington Farm to the War Department for use by infantry and cavalry troops at neighboring Fort Myer. Perched on a hill above the Potomac, just below the Lee mansion and overlooking Memorial Bridge, Arlington Farm was one of the most prominent sites in the Washington area.Late on Friday afternoon, July 18, George Edwin Bergstrom got to work. A formal man with a brusque manner, his dark hair whitening at the temples, Bergstrom was an accomplished and experienced architect, now in charge of the largest project of his long career. He gathered with his assistants at the division headquarters.Bergstrom led the deliberations. The restrictions were confounding, given the space they needed. The easiest solution, constructing a tall building, was out. They would have to spread out horizontally. But how? A square building that size -- with the enormous interior distances to be covered -- was too unwieldy, as was a rectangle. The Arlington Farm tract had a peculiar asymmetrical pentagon shape bound on five sides by roads or other divisions. Finally, guided by the odd shape of the plot, they designed an irregular pentagon. A sketch by Socrates Thomas Stathes, a young War Department draftsman, showed a square with a corner cut off, more or less matching the tract's shape. It was really two buildings, a five-sided ring surrounding a smaller one of the same shape.All through the weekend, the architects refined the design. The interior of the outer ring was lined with 49 barracks-like wings, sticking in like the teeth of a comb. The smaller ring had 34 exterior wings, all pointing toward the outer ring. The wings were 50 feet wide and 160 feet long, separated from each other by 30-foot-wide open-air "light courts." Corridors connected the two rings on the ground and third floors. Only the most senior officials would have private offices. Allowing 100 square feet per worker, the building could hold 40,000 employees.There were many problems with the irregular design. The pattern was awkward, and the routes between wings of the two buildings were circuitous. Lacking symmetry, with rows of wings sticking out, the building was frankly quite ugly. Yet, given the site, the pentagonal design had one overriding virtue, Stathes remembered more than 60 years later: "It fit."The whole idea seemed nonsensical to Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson. The War Department had just opened a new building the previous month in Foggy Bottom, but it had quickly proven inadequate and too small. How could the War Department propose to build a new headquarters so soon?At age 73, the secretary of war was the elder statesman of Roosevelt's Cabinet, and was known for his dignity, wisdom and Yankee reserve. Stimson was, in the words of an officer on the War Department staff, "like the Rock of Ages." But he also was imbued with a deep streak of Old Testament temper. Under Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson had telephoned Stimson early the morning of Tuesday, July 22, to inform him about the building Somervell had dreamed up. Patterson, who along with Marshall had given Somervell his approval the day before, arrived at the secretary's headquarters in the Munitions Building, accompanied by Somervell, Brig. Gen. Eugene Reybold and Bergstrom. As they presented their case, the dubious Stimson found himself slowly drawn to the logic. The secretary examined the plans for the building, which struck him as being "on practical and simple lines." How long would it take to finish? Stimson asked. One year, Somervell promised. The efficiency of the War Department would improve 25 to 40 percent by having everyone under one roof, Stimson was told.Finally, the secretary conferred his blessing. Sound it out with the House Appropriations Committee, and see what they think, Stimson told his visitors.At a hearing that afternoon before Woodrum's subcommittee, the congressman invited Somervell to speak. Exuding confidence, Somervell presented his plan. The building would now be three stories high, instead of four, to better harmonize with its surroundings by Memorial Bridge. The cost would be $35 million, and that covered everything except parking lots for 10,000 cars."This thing would not come to pieces very easily, would it?" asked Rep. John Taber, a New York Republican."It certainly should not," Somervell assured him. "It should not ever come to pieces."Somervell promised to begin construction in two weeks and finish in a year. As for the huge size, it was no time for restraint, the general told the congressmen. Somervell had sold them; the subcommittee unanimously approved funding for the new building, sending the recommendation to the full committee.Stimson decided it was time to tell the president what was afoot. On Thursday, July 24, he told the president's military aide, Maj. Gen. Edwin "Pa" M. Watson, that he wanted to speak with Roosevelt after the afternoon Cabinet meeting about a new War Department headquarters in Arlington. "It has now reached the stage where the Appropriations Committee has heard of it, and Stimson wants you to know that he is not [the] author, but that the plan has a lot of merit," Watson reported to the president.Somervell's proposal was reaching the president at an opportune time, as Roosevelt had concluded that the United States probably could not avoid war with Nazi Germany. Earlier that month, the president had agreed to take over the defense of Iceland from Britain. When the proposal was raised during the Cabinet meeting July 24, Roosevelt breezily approved the building. In exactly one week, Somervell had proposed constructing a building of unprecedented size and scale, produced preliminary plans, won the strong support of the War Department leadership, sold it to key congressional leaders, and received a green light from the president of the United States. Nothing, it seemed, could stop him.IN JULY 1941, PIERRE L'ENFANT WAS SURELY ROLLING OVER IN HIS GRAVE. Gilmore D. Clarke, chairman of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, was certain of that. L'Enfant, the designer of Washington, was buried in a majestic site at Arlington National Cemetery overlooking the Potomac. It suddenly seemed that L'Enfant's view would be destroyed by the enormous new War Department headquarters Somervell was planning for just a few hundred yards below the major's tomb. Clarke was dumbfounded. "It is proposed to place this 'city' at the very portals of the Arlington National Cemetery, thus resulting in the introduction of 35 acres of ugly, flat roofs into the very foreground of the most majestic view of the National Capital that obtains . . . from a point near the Tomb of Major L'Enfant, the architect of Washington," he wrote soon after learning of the plan.The Commission of Fine Arts was the keeper of L'Enfant's flame. Created by Congress in 1910, the commission carried no legal authority to block projects, but Congress generally followed the recommendations of the distinguished panel of architects, sculptors and landscape architects.Clarke, a New York native, had a reputation as one of the nation's finest landscape architects and had helped design some of the country's first parkways. He was not a building architect, but that did not stop him from passing judgment on those who were. Clarke was accustomed to getting respect. But Somervell had not bothered to notify the commission about the massive new War Department building. When Clarke finally got word of what was afoot, the project had already been approved by the House of Representatives.Clarke was livid. "It is inconceivable that this outrage could be perpetrated in this period of the history of the development of this City, a city held in the highest esteem by every citizen who visits it," he wrote in a letter to the Senate.Somervell had also ignored the National Capital Park and Planning Commission, assuring Congress that there was no need to consult the commission about the project. Not everyone agreed, including the planning commission chairman, Frederic A. Delano, or, as President Roosevelt called him, "Uncle Fred." Delano, younger brother of Roosevelt's mother, Sara, was a pioneer in the field of city planning and was a leading force in resurrecting L'Enfant's plan and clearing out the Mall. Delano pushed Congress to bring order to the capital's development by creating the National Capital Park and Planning Commission, and, Somer-vell's assurances aside, the law creating the commission clearly gave it oversight over the proposed building in Arlington.Delano had many concerns about the building, particularly potential transportation problems. At 3 p.m. on Wednesday, July 30, Delano walked into the Oval Office for a meeting with his nephew. He was accompanied by Harold D. Smith, director of the president's budget office. With calm gray eyes behind his rimless spectacles, Smith had the look and sensibilities of a Midwestern justice of the peace. His opinions were held in high regard by Roosevelt. The visitors had a very direct message: "It was a great pity to construct this building," the president was told.Roosevelt had returned the previous day from a five-day visit to Hyde Park, where he had decamped after approving the new building at the Cabinet meeting July 24. Now, faced with his uncle's protests, the president admitted that perhaps he had been a bit hasty. Smith's concerns about the building were not aesthetic. He just could not understand why a huge, permanent building was needed when the growth of the War Department was supposed to be a temporary response to the emergency.Delano and Smith told the president that moving 40,000 people back and forth across the Potomac River between Washington and Virginia every day would create "terrific" traffic problems and overwhelm the capacity of the bridges. By the end of the meeting, the president had decided that Somervell's building would be cut back considerably in size.ON AUGUST 3, AT 10:40 ON A HOT AND HUMID SUNDAY MORNING, the U.S. flag flying over the White House came down from its staff, signaling the president's departure. Roosevelt was escaping a Washington so oppressive that "the heat was melting the tar on Massachusetts Avenue," one press account said. A special train waited at Union Station to take the president to New England for what was supposed to be a relaxing 10-day fishing cruise.Before leaving town, Roosevelt had taken care of a pressing matter.After huddling with Harold Smith at noon on Friday, Roosevelt signed a letter to Colorado Sen. Alva B. Adams, chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that was to consider the new War Department building. "When this project was first brought to my attention, I agreed that it should be explored," Roosevelt's letter read. "Since then I have had an opportunity to look into the matter personally and have some reservations which I would like to impart to your committee."The letter, drafted by Smith and using language very similar to that sent by Delano to the Senate the day before, expressed concern about whether the site's transportation network could accommodate such a large building with so many employees. Roosevelt urged the Senate to approve "a smaller building" limited to 20,000 employees. More space could be added later if needed, he said.With all final business attended to, Roosevelt appeared not to have a care in the world as he headed out of town, boasting of the number of fish he expected to catch. But the trip was a good deal more than a vacation. The president's yacht was scheduled for a surreptitious night rendezvous off Martha's Vineyard with the heavy cruiser USS Augusta, flagship of the Atlantic Fleet. The Augusta, in turn, escorted by another heavy cruiser and five destroyers, would carry Roosevelt to waters off Newfoundland for a secret meeting -- his first as president -- with Winston Churchill, prime minister of Britain.Almost everyone back in Washington, even senior government officials, knew nothing about the president's mission. Congress remained in session, and the debate over the new War Department building erupted into a full-fledged controversy. Somervell confidently moved forward to construct the building on his own terms, making no adjustments to shrink it. Yet there was no denying that Somervell had suffered quite a reversal.A consensus was settling in some quarters that the new War Department simply could not be built at the foot of Arlington Cemetery, desecrating the view from L'Enfant's tomb. Clarke, the leading opponent, endorsed a proposal to use another plot of land, this one immediately south of the Arlington experimental farm and adjacent to Washington-Hoover Airport. The Army had just broken ground for a quartermaster depot on the site.There would be no aesthetic concerns about building on this low-lying, ignoble tract of land. But Somervell refused to bend, heaping scorn on the quartermaster depot site, set in a picaresque neighborhood known as Hell's Bottom: "The Chairman of the Fine Arts Commission thinks it is all right to put the War Department down among a lot of shanties, brickyards, dumps, factories and things of that kind." The committee endorsed Somervell's favored site.In a debate on the floor of the Senate on August 14, opponents fought to derail the project. Sen. Robert A. Taft, the die-hard conservative from Ohio and avowed enemy of all things Roosevelt, led the sharpest attack. "To my mind, there is not any evidence that we shall need such a tremendous building, the largest office building that has ever been built in the entire world . . ." he said. Taft offered an amendment to cut the $35 million appropriation in half, but it failed, 29 to 21.The bill authorizing construction finally passed. The matter seemed settled: The new War Department building would be built right where Somervell wanted it.Bronzed and refreshed from his two-week adventure at sea, Franklin D. Roosevelt arrived back at the White House on Sunday morning, August 17, in good cheer, but he was quickly brought back to earth by awaiting problems. His secretary of the Interior, Harold L. Ickes, was in outright revolt against the War Department project and had written the president "a very vigorous letter . . . begging him not to permit this rape of Washington." A telegram also arrived Sunday from Frederic Delano, traveling out West, telling the president he was "greatly concerned" by what had transpired. In a follow-up letter sent the same day, Delano urged his nephew to ask Congress to reconsider. The newspapers were also pleading with Roosevelt to act. Unhappy that the Senate had ignored his recommendation that the building's size be halved, the president was chagrined that he had agreed to the Arlington Farm site in the first place.Roosevelt, who prided himself on his aesthetic sense, already felt a lingering guilt for his leading role in a previous desecration of Washington. As assistant secretary of the Navy when America declared war on Germany in 1917, Roosevelt had persuaded President Woodrow Wilson to allow the construction of large temporary buildings on the Mall along Constitution Avenue to house the Navy and Army, then in desperate need of office space. Nearly a quarter-century after they were built, the barracks-like Navy and Munitions buildings were still there.On the afternoon of August 19, presidential press spokesman Stephen T. Early escorted the press corps into the Oval Office, where the reporters gathered for Roosevelt's first press conference in the White House since his return to Washington. The president reflected on his historic meeting with Churchill and his own efforts to prepare the United States for the Nazi threat. A reporter changed the subject: "Can you say anything about the new War Department building in Arlington?"The president dropped his bombshell. "My present inclination is not to accept that action by Congress," he announced.Before the assembled reporters, the president again prostrated himself before the altar of L'Enfant for having brought the "temporary" buildings to the Mall. "And here it is -- under the name of emergency, it is proposed to put up a permanent building, which will deliberately and definitely, for 100 years to come, spoil the plan of the national capital," the president said. ". . . I have had a part in spoiling the national parks and the beautiful waterfront of the District once, and I don't want to do it again."The following afternoon, reporters were brought into the Oval Office for a second press conference. The "best solution," Roosevelt announced, would be to put the bulk of the building on the quartermaster site, with a small portion jutting onto the adjacent Arlington Farm land.The bill passed by Congress did not specify where on the Arlington Farm site the new building was to be placed. As long as any part of the project was on Arlington Farm land, the president reasoned, it would technically adhere to the act of Congress. "So that makes it entirely within the bill," the president declared. Inspecting Hell's Bottom several days later with Somervell and Clarke, the president looked over the tawdry neighborhood and pronounced the site "excellent."The original rationale for Bergstrom's pentagonal design was gone. The building no longer would be constructed on the five-sided Arlington Farm site. Yet the chief architect and his team continued with plans for a pentagon at the new location. There was no time to change them.Besides, the pentagon design still worked. Like a circle, a pentagon would create shorter walking distances within the building -- 30 to 50 percent less than in a rectangle, architects calculated -- but its lines and walls would be straight and, therefore, much easier to build. The move from the odd-shaped Arlington Farm site freed the architects from the need to make the building asymmetrical. The advantages gained -- a smoother pedestrian flow, better space arrangement, and easier distri-bution of utilities around the building -- "proved startling," the architects concluded.The symmetrical design also dramatically improved the look of the building. Seen from above, the concentric rings of pentagons, if not beautiful, were at least pleasing to the eye. Something else about a pentagon appealed to Somervell and other Army officers. The five-sided shape was reminiscent of a 17th-century fortress or a Civil War battlement; indeed, the first shot of that war, a mortar shell that burst with a glare at 4:30 in the morning of April 12, 1861, illuminated the dark, five-sided shape of Fort Sumter.Roosevelt made the first foray at changing the design. His vision was for a solid, square building running a fifth of a mile in each direction; the only windows, if any, would be on the exterior. By his own admission, the idea was "a trial balloon," but the president was excited about the futuristic possibilities.Somervell and Bergstrom did their best to dampen the president's enthusiasm, and even Clarke, despite his dislike of the five-sided shape, spoke against the idea. "Well, Mr. President . . . somebody might throw a monkey wrench into the air-conditioning, and maybe they wouldn't all get out before they suffocated," Clarke told Roosevelt."You know, I never thought of that," Roosevelt mused.THE PENTAGONAL DESIGN NEXT CAME UNDER ATTACK FROM CLARKE AND THE COMMISSION ON FINE ARTS. Complying with Roosevelt's instructions, architect Edwin Bergstrom appeared before the commission on the morning of Tuesday, September 2, for aGesturing to the drawings, Bergstrom explained the plans. The commission's reception was decidedly cool. "A pentagonal has never worked out well and great confusion is apt to result in the circulation of the building," said commission member William H. Lamb, a partner in the architectural firm that designed the Empire State Building. A rectangular building would be preferable, Lamb said.His suggestion was endorsed by a most formidable commission member, Paul Philippe Cret, the internationally renowned French-born practitioner of the beaux-arts style and one of America's most distinguished architects. In such a huge building, a pentagonal design would confound visitors, Cret said. "If one gets into the wrong corridor, he is lost," he said. He and Lamb also wanted Bergstrom to rework plans for the facade and "do away with the monotonous appearance."Bergstrom agreed to make revisions but made it clear he was determined to keep the pentagon. After the War Department architects left the meeting, Cret declared that the fine arts commission should appeal to the president.Somervell beat the commissioners to the punch. At 12:15, the general, nattily dressed in a bow tie and a seersucker suit, strolled into the Oval Office, accompanied by Bergstrom, who was carrying a large sheaf of blueprints.Roosevelt, just back from Hyde Park, reviewed the plans carefully. He asked questions and directed a few changes, then approved the design.Everything was "coming along fine," Somervell told reporters as he left the Oval Office.At 2:15 p.m., it was the commissioners' turn. Clarke, Cret and Lamb were ushered in to see the president. The mustachioed, dignified old Frenchman presented the case against the pentagonal design, arguing that a rectangle made more sense. Cret also appealed to Roosevelt's sensibilities as commander in chief, suggesting that it would be even better to disperse the War Department in several buildings rather than in one single great mass.This pentagon-shaped War Department building, Cret said, would make the biggest bombing target in the world."You know, gentlemen, I like that pentagon-shaped building," Roosevelt said. "You know why?""No," the commissioners replied resignedly."I like it because nothing like it has ever been done that way before."Sources:Excerpted from by Stephen F. Vogel.