1.   As the centerpiece of the fair, the great White City featured monumental buildings inspired by those of ancient Greece and Rome.

2.   Above ruins of ordinary mud-brick houses, they erected a monumental public building of cut-stone blocks that was surrounded by a massive stone wall.

3.   But old family names, and their foundations, do build monumental public buildings.

4.   It had none of the classical gravitas sought by the Beaux Arts-trained architects of monumental public buildings.

5.   The neighbors wanted a more Victorian structure, but the society wanted a more monumental building, with pilasters, evoking architectural kinship with the Supreme Court.

6.   The shrouded statue is raised, dwarfing the monumental buildings around it.

7.   In the post-communist years the monumental white stone building has often served as a backdrop for open-air concerts.