Father Paul Dobberstein began building the Grotto of the Redemption in West Bend, Iowa, 100 years ago. It's covered with stones, rocks, petrified wood and seashells.
Credit Sandhya Dirks for NPR
After he contracted pneumonia, Dobberstein — a priest, a geologist and artist — vowed he would build a shrine to the Virgin Mary if he survived. The Grotto of the Redemption is that shrine.
Credit Sandhya Dirks for NPR
Just about everyone in West Bend — population 785 — is connected to the grotto, which was built over a period of 40 years.
The Midwest is known for its roadside attractions — world's largest ear of corn, heaviest ball of twine, biggest truck stop.
But it's also home to one of the largest collections of grottoes in the world. Most of these man-made caves were created by immigrant priests at the beginning of the 20th century. And the mother of them all — encrusted in $6 million worth of semiprecious stones — is in West Bend, Iowa.
This weekend, the Grotto of the Redemption turns 100.
Gesundheit: Kichaa is the name of one of the animated characters causing consternation among the animators at Digital Domain. He's featured in the upcoming film The Legend of Tembo.
You may not have heard of the special-effects studio Digital Domain, but you've probably seen their work. They sank the Titanic for James Cameron; they aged Brad Pitt backward in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Most recently, their virtual likeness of the late Tupac Shakur performed in concert.
Having worked those wonders, they're tackling thornier challenges: fur and feathers.
Indiana Treasurer and Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock accidentally released video responses to the Supreme Court's decision on the Affordable Health Care Act. The court has yet to announcing their ruling. Muourdock prepared four responses for if the court upholds the law, overturns it, if it splits and if it doesn't provide an answer. Melissa Block and Robert Siegel have more.
Leaders of Germany, France, Italy and Spain met Friday in Rome to find a way out of its current financial crisis ahead of a full European Union summit next week. Robert Siegel talks to Matthias M. Matthijs, Assistant Professor of International Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University, for more.
The leaders of Italy, Spain, France and Germany meet in Rome for a pre-summit summit. The host, Italian prime minister Mario Monti, says the next ten days are critical for the survival of the Eurozone.
The Degnan residence was built as a weekend retreat in La Canada Flintridge — a Los Angeles suburb reachable by freeway in 40 minutes (in light traffic) today, but that took a couple of hours' drive in 1927, before major freeway construction began in Southern California. This Spanish Colonial Revival home was Williams' first commission as an independent practitioner.
Credit Copyright Benny Chan
Williams thought a home's entrance should make a statement. In this Colonial Revival residence, designed in Beverly Hills for the Landis family in 1955, the narrow foyer has large double doors that swing open to reveal a high ceiling covered in a trompe l'oeil sky, and a lavish chandelier hung from a starburst medallion. The medallion's design is repeated on the marble floor.
Credit Copyright Benny Chan
The staircase of the French Normandy-style Sensenbrenner residence, built in Beverly Hills in 1933, features a Williams trademark cherished by his homes' owners: a beautiful, sinuously curving staircase that was the focal point of the foyer. "He did the most beautiful entry halls I've ever seen," said real estate agent Bret Parsons.
Credit Copyright Benny Chan
This Spanish Colonial Revival-style home is an example of how Williams worked with the existing landscape to make a home part of its natural surroundings. The window placement allows for views of the city skyline and the Hollywood Hills.
Credit Copyright Benny Chan
In recognition of Williams' creation of some of the Beverly Hills Hotel's most iconic spaces — the Polo Lounge, the Fountain Coffee Shop, the Crescent wing of the building — the hotel's owners named a suite in the hotel after him. Williams designed it to be a home away from home for long-term guests. Talk show host Jimmy Fallon declared it "the best hotel room I've ever stayed in."
Credit Copyright Benny Chan
Another view of the Historic Paul Williams Suite. Originally designed in the late 1940s, the suite was moved to the second floor during a renovation in the 1990s, and re-created just as Williams designed it. It contains the same use of stone, curved walls and marble that are found in many of his permanent homes.
Credit Copyright Benny Chan
Williams was a great believer that the mild Southern California climate should be taken advantage of whenever possible. He created an "outdoor living room" on the patio of this home, with a fireplace and furniture that would encourage alfresco meals. The large patio doors also help diminish the demarcation between outdoors and indoors.
Credit Courtesy of Karen E. Hudson
Architect Paul Williams (in a photo thought to be from the 1940s or '50s) developed the ability to sketch buildings upside down to accommodate white clients who might not want to sit next to him.
Paul Revere Williams began designing homes and commercial buildings in the early 1920s. By the time he died in 1980, he had created some 2,500 buildings, most of them in and around Los Angeles, but also around the globe. And he did it as a pioneer: Paul Williams was African-American. He was the first black architect to become a member of the American Institute of Architects in 1923, and in 1957 he was inducted as the AIA's first black fellow.
Singer Marisol Hernandez (center) takes listeners from her grandfather's burro cart to La Santa Cecilia's Latin Grammy Award, on Olvera Street in Los Angeles.
Named for the patron saint of musicians, La Santa Cecilia has deep roots in the immigrant community of Los Angeles. Yet the band's six members draw inspiration not only from their rich heritage, but also from their everyday lives growing up embedded in American culture.
During a short, recent trip to historic Olvera Street in downtown L.A. — "It's a little street with little shops resembling any town in Mexico or Latin America" — singer Marisol Hernandez describes the hopes and dreams the city represents.
The first minarets in Murfreesboro, Tenn., are about to be placed atop a new mosque. But when construction is complete on the new Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, located about 30 miles southeast of Nashville, no one will get to move in.
An ongoing court battle has stalled the project, one of several Islamic centers around the country that, like the so-called ground zero mosque, have encountered resistance from local communities.
Community Science Workshops give low-income kids around California opportunities to learn about science firsthand — from holding spiders to building robots.
Credit Jason Henry / Mission Science Workshop
Dan Sudran helps kids from San Francisco's John Muir Elementary reconstruct a 36-foot gray whale with actual whale bones.
Many kids who grow up in big cities have lots of opportunities to experience science hands-on. There are zoos, museums, planetariums and school field trips.
But those amenities are sometimes out of reach for lower-income children. And in some rural areas, those opportunities simply don't exist at all.
In California — as in many states — public school science programs have faced deep budget cuts. Many kids have been left behind.
Dan Sudran has taken it upon himself to help close the gap.
