engineering

Piz Gloria

Piz Gloria 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 Piz Gloria rather than just read about it. In short: Piz Gloria is a revolving restaurant at the 2,970 m (9,740 ft)-high summit of the Schilthorn near Mürren in the Bernese Oberland, Switzerland. Overview The cable car station and the restaurant were designed by Bernese architect Konrad Wolf.

Key takeaways

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

Reference excerpt

Piz Gloria is a revolving restaurant at the 2,970 m (9,740 ft)-high summit of the Schilthorn near Mürren in the Bernese Oberland, Switzerland.

Overview

The cable car station and the restaurant were designed by Bernese architect Konrad Wolf. The Piz restaurant claims to be the world's first revolving restaurant although others already existed at the time of Piz Gloria's 1969 opening, such as the "Eye of the Needle" in Seattle, Washington, United States, which opened in 1962. Given the difficult topographic and climatic conditions, parts had to be prefabricated. The outer skin of the circular upper floor is of aluminium-clad wooden panels. The roof originally was bare aluminium, but has since been coated. The rotative mechanism — a 12-metre-diameter (39 ft) core with a 3.0-metre (9.8 ft) annulus that completely rotates the upper floor in approximately an hour — allows every guest to have a view in turn. In 1990, the restaurant was enlarged to accommodate some 400 diners, while retaining its original architectural character.

The name Piz Gloria originated in Ian Fleming's James Bond novel On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), in which it is the mountain-top hideout of the villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld and contains an allergy clinic. In the story, the location is the Languard range, above Pontresina somewhere in the Engadine near St. Moritz, where Romansh is spoken — piz is a local Romansh term for a mountain peak. However, the real restaurant is located in the Bernese Oberland, where Romansh is not spoken. The movie production team found the restaurant partly constructed and contributed financially to its completion in return for exclusive use for filming the movie (released in 1969), in which the building has a prominent role. After filming was completed, the restaurant retained the Piz Gloria name of the film location, and currently acknowledges the film's significant contribution to its commercial reputation; the lower floor houses a James Bond exhibition containing memorabilia and film clips. In July 2015, a new and larger exhibition, called "007 Walk of Fame", was opened. George Lazenby and members of the film crew attended the launch.

See also List of restaurants in Switzerland List of mountains of Switzerland accessible by public transport

References

External links Media related to Piz Gloria at Wikimedia Commons

Piz Gloria Live Webcam at Schilthorn

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Piz Gloria

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Piz Gloria 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 Piz Gloria 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 Piz Gloria 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 Piz Gloria

In research: Piz Gloria 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 Piz Gloria 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: Piz Gloria is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1969 establishments in Switzerland, 20th-century architecture in Switzerland, Bernese Alps, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Piz Gloria 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 Piz Gloria in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Piz Gloria 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 Piz Gloria out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Piz Gloria in simple terms?

Piz Gloria is a revolving restaurant at the 2,970 m (9,740 ft)-high summit of the Schilthorn near Mürren in the Bernese Oberland, Switzerland. Overview The cable car station and the restaurant were designed by Bernese architect Konrad Wolf.

Why does Piz Gloria 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 Piz Gloria?

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 Piz Gloria.