This story was written by Adam Frucci and originally appeared in mental_floss magazine as part of our 101 Masterpieces series. Download our new iPad app and get a free... READ ON

© Peter Iovino/altafilms/handout/dpa/CorbisIn The Artist, George Valentin is a silent movie star who stubbornly refuses to change with the times and embrace talking pictures. It’s a story that echoes the real-life dilemma faced by Charlie Chaplin in the late 1920s. Against all commercial odds, Chaplin gambled everything on City Lights, a silent film that bucked the trend and stands as one of the great landmarks in cinema. Filmed eighty years apart, The Artist and City Lights elicited similar... READ ON

By Eric FurmanUpon seeing the Seagram Building for the first time, you might say it simply looks like a lot of other office buildings. But you'd be wrong; a lot of other office buildings look like it. Located on Manhattan's Park Avenue, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's Seagram Building is the most imitated high-rise of the last 50 years and what The New York Times architecture critic Herbert Muschamp dubbed "the millennium's most important building." Functional,... READ ON