I will be up close and personal with the Mills Building for most of next month, surveying masonry and windows for upcoming repairs. Beautiful building-- Roman brick masonry, terra cotta ornamentation, marble cladding, copper cornice.
Mary
-----Original Message-----
From: The listserv where the buildings do the talking [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Martin C. Tangora
Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2010 4:45 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [BP] Earthquakes and buildings (was Speaking of hell ... )
This may be a record for latest contribution to a BP thread ...
After the Haiti earthquake, this list had various comments,
and I wanted to chime in but my membership kept crashing,
and ... well, anyway ...
Speaking as a Chicagoan, I think that whenever one discusses
earthquakes vs. buildings, one should mention San Francisco 1906
and the Mills Building by Burnham and Root. Take a look:
http://www.oac.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt9489r16r/?brand=oac4
Ten-story brick "skyscraper," 1891-92. Chicago School
in both construction and design. We can't claim that the building
came through unscathed -- the interior had to be rebuilt --
but you can go downtown in SF today and see it standing there,
looking as if (as a design) it was one of the last big buildings
erected before the Depression of 1929, it was so far ahead of its day.
John Root was not just a great designer, Sullivan's rival,
but a serious architect. I don't know how he did it,
but in the 1891 competition to design a tall building
that would survive the 1906 earthquake, he took first place.
He also got an honorable mention for the Chronicle Building
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chronicle_Building_1906.jpg
of a few years earlier, which was also damaged but not nearly so badly as its neighbors --
heavy printing presses fell through the floors, that didn't help --
and is standing today -- in fact recently restored
http://sf.curbed.com/archives/2007/12/27/de_young_building_a_photo_history.php
Fri, 15 Jan 2010 16:35:06 EST
> ... this earthquake, as others, shows the tremendous variety and complexity
> of building failures. ...
Martin C. Tangora
University of Illinois at Chicago
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