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Gerald Ratner Athletics Center

2003 establishments in IllinoisBasketball venues in ChicagoChicago Maroons men's basketballCollege basketball venues in the United StatesCollege volleyball venues in the United States
College wrestling venues in the United StatesCésar Pelli buildingsHealth clubs in the United StatesHigh-tech architectureMedical and health organizations based in IllinoisModernist architecture in IllinoisPostmodern architecture in the United StatesSports venues completed in 2003Sports venues in ChicagoSuspended structuresSwimming venues in ChicagoUniversity of ChicagoVolleyball venues in ChicagoWrestling venues in Chicago
Ratner Athletic Center
Ratner Athletic Center

The Gerald Ratner Athletics Center is a $51 million athletics facility within the University of Chicago campus in the Hyde Park community area on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois in the United States. The building was named after University of Chicago alumnus, Gerald Ratner. The architect of this suspension structure that is supported by masts, cables and counterweights was César Pelli, who is best known as the architect of the Petronas Towers. The Ratner Athletics Center was approved for use in September 2003. The facility includes, among other things: a competition gymnasium, a multilevel fitness facility, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, a multipurpose dance studio, meeting room space, and athletic department offices. It serves as home to several of the university's athletic teams and has hosted numerous National Collegiate Athletic Association Division III regional and University Athletic Association conference championship events. Located at the southwest corner of Ellis Avenue and 55th Street, the Ratner Center has an award-winning design that substitutes a complex external mast and counterweight system for interior support devices to allow for large open-space areas inside the building. Cesar Pelli & Associates Inc. was credited as the design architect and OWP/P was the architect of record.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Gerald Ratner Athletics Center (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Gerald Ratner Athletics Center
South Ellis Avenue, Chicago Hyde Park

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N 41.79413 ° E -87.6018 °
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Ratner Athletic Center

South Ellis Avenue 5530
60637 Chicago, Hyde Park
Illinois, United States
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Ratner Athletic Center
Ratner Athletic Center
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Chicago Pile-1
Chicago Pile-1

Chicago Pile-1 (CP-1) was the world's first artificial nuclear reactor. On 2 December 1942, the first human-made self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was initiated in CP-1, during an experiment led by Enrico Fermi. The secret development of the reactor was the first major technical achievement for the Manhattan Project, the Allied effort to create atomic bombs during World War II. Developed by the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago, it was built under the west viewing stands of the original Stagg Field. Although the project's civilian and military leaders had misgivings about the possibility of a disastrous runaway reaction, they trusted Fermi's safety calculations and decided they could carry out the experiment in a densely populated area. Fermi described the reactor as "a crude pile of black bricks and wooden timbers".The reactor was assembled in November 1942, by a team that included Fermi, Leo Szilard (who had previously formulated an idea for non-fission chain reaction), Leona Woods, Herbert L. Anderson, Walter Zinn, Martin D. Whitaker, and George Weil. The reactor used natural uranium. This required a very large amount of material in order to reach criticality, along with graphite used as a neutron moderator. The reactor contained 45,000 ultra-pure graphite blocks weighing 360 short tons (330 tonnes), and was fueled by 5.4 short tons (4.9 tonnes) of uranium metal and 45 short tons (41 tonnes) of uranium oxide. Unlike most subsequent nuclear reactors, it had no radiation shielding or cooling system as it operated at very low power – about one-half watt. The pursuit for a reactor had been touched off by concern that Nazi Germany had a substantial scientific lead. The success of Chicago Pile-1 provided the first vivid demonstration of the feasibility of the military use of nuclear energy by the Allies, and the reality of the danger that Nazi Germany could succeed in producing nuclear weapons. Previously, estimates of critical masses had been crude calculations, leading to order-of-magnitude uncertainties about the size of a hypothetical bomb. The successful use of graphite as a moderator paved the way for progress in the Allied effort, whereas the German program languished partly because of the belief that scarce and expensive heavy water would have to be used for that purpose. The Germans had failed to account for the importance of boron and cadmium impurities in the graphite samples on which they ran their test of its usability as a moderator, while Leo Szillard and Enrico Fermi had asked suppliers about the most common contaminations of graphite after a first failed test and consequently ensured the next test would be run with one entirely devoid of them. As it turns out both boron and cadmium are strong neutron poisons. In 1943, CP-1 was moved to Red Gate Woods, and reconfigured to become Chicago Pile-2 (CP-2). There, it was operated for research until 1954, when it was dismantled and buried. The stands at Stagg Field were demolished in August 1957; the site is now a National Historic Landmark and a Chicago Landmark.