engineering

Perelman Building

Perelman Building is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Perelman Building rather than just read about it. In short: The Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building—originally the Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Company Building—is an annex of the Philadelphia Museum of Art containing exhibition galleries, offices, conservation labs, and the museum library.

Key takeaways

Perelman Building belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Perelman Building to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Perelman Building from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building—originally the Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Company Building—is an annex of the Philadelphia Museum of Art containing exhibition galleries, offices, conservation labs, and the museum library. It is an Art Deco building that features cathedral-like entrances and is adorned with sculpture and gilding. The building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Perelman Building is located at the intersection of Pennsylvania Avenue and Fairmount Avenue, facing the Philadelphia Museum of Art's main building across Kelly Drive.

History Philadelphia architectural firm Zantzinger, Borie & Medary, which had collaborated on the Philadelphia Museum of Art, designed the building to be the headquarters for Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Company. Construction began in 1926 and the building was completed in 1928. Sculptor Lee Lawrie created its decorative scheme, which features polychrome facades adorned with figures symbolizing attributes of insurance: the owl of wisdom, the dog of fidelity, the pelican of charity, the opossum of protection, and the squirrel of frugality. Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Company occupied the building from 1927 to 1972. In 1982, it was acquired and restored by the Reliance Standard Life Insurance Company, which in turn relocated in 1999.

Philadelphia Museum of Art restoration The Philadelphia Museum of Art acquired the building in 1999 through the City of Philadelphia. In anticipation of its 125th anniversary in 2001, the museum began a capital campaign that collected $240 million in donations. In recognition of the $15 million contributed by the Perelmans, the annex was renamed the Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building in 2000. Gluckman Mayner Architects restored and renovated the historic building, and expanded it with a 59,000-square-foot (5,500 m2) addition. The Perelman Building opened on September 15, 2007.

Resources The Perelman Building's six galleries total 2,000 square feet (190 m2) of exhibition space.

The Julien Levy Gallery is dedicated to photographs from the museum's collection of over 150,000 prints, drawings, and photographs. The Joan Spain Gallery is dedicated to exhibition of the museum's costume and textiles collection, which has over 30,000 works. The Collab Gallery shows modern and contemporary design art ranging from furniture to ceramics. The Exhibition Gallery hosts changing special exhibitions. Two study galleries provide resources to art scholars, and are available to the public by appointment and an educational resource center for teachers. The museum's library holds collections of art books and periodicals on the first floor and a reading room on the second floor.

References

External links

Official website Listing at Philadelphia Architects and Buildings

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Perelman Building

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Perelman Building claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Perelman Building before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Perelman Building ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Perelman Building

In research: Perelman Building appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Perelman Building in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Perelman Building is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Art Deco architecture in Pennsylvania, Buildings and structures completed in 1926, Buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Philadelphia, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Perelman Building outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Perelman Building in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Perelman Building means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Perelman Building out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Perelman Building in simple terms?

Why does Perelman Building matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Perelman Building?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Perelman Building.