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Tuesday, May 30, 2023

The Pentagon

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
The Pentagon
The Pentagon, cropped square.png
A 2018 aerial view of The Pentagon from above the Potomac River
General information
Architectural styleClassical Revival, Modern, and Stripped Classicism
LocationRichmond Hwy./VA 110 at I-395, Arlington County, Virginia, U.S.
Coordinates38°52′15″N 77°03′18″W
Construction started11 September 1941
Completed15 January 1943
Cost$83 million (equivalent to $1.19 billion in 2021)
OwnerUnited States Department of Defense
Height
Roof77 ft (23 m)
Technical details
Floor count7 (2 underground)
Floor area6,636,360 sq ft (620,000 m2)
Design and construction
Architect(s)George Bergstrom
David J. Witmer
Main contractorJohn McShain, Inc.
Other information
Parking67 acres (27 ha)

The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense, in Arlington County, Virginia, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. It was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As a symbol of the U.S. military, the phrase The Pentagon is often used as a metonym for the Department of Defense and its leadership.

The building was designed by American architect George Bergstrom and built by contractor John McShain. Ground was broken on 11 September 1941, and the building was dedicated on 15 January 1943. General Brehon Somervell provided the major impetus to gain Congressional approval for the project; Colonel Leslie Groves was responsible for overseeing the project for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which supervised it.

The Pentagon is the world's largest office building, with about 6.5 million square feet (150 acres; 60 ha) of floor space, of which 3.7 million square feet (85 acres; 34 ha) are used as offices. Some 23,000 military and civilian employees, and another 3,000 non-defense support personnel, work in the Pentagon. It has five sides, five floors above ground, two basement levels, and five ring corridors per floor with a total of 17.5 mi (28.2 km) of corridors, with a central five-acre (2.0 ha) pentagonal plaza.

In 2001, the Pentagon was damaged during the September 11 attacks. Five al-Qaeda hijackers flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the western side of the building, killing themselves and 184 other people: 59 on the airplane and 125 in the Pentagon. It was the first significant foreign attack on government facilities in Washington, D.C. since the burning of Washington during the War of 1812. Following the attacks, the western side of the building was repaired, with a small indoor memorial and chapel added at the point of impact. An outdoor memorial dedicated to the Pentagon victims of 9/11 opened in 2008.

Layout and facilities

The Pentagon building spans 28.7 acres (116,000 m2), and includes an additional 5.1 acres (21,000 m2) as a central courtyard.

Starting with the north side and moving clockwise, its five façade entrances are the Mall Terrace, the River Terrace, the Concourse (or Metro Station), the South Parking, and the Heliport. On the north side of the building, the Mall Entrance, which also features a portico, leads out to a 600 ft-long (180 m) terrace that is used for ceremonies. The River Entrance, which features a portico projecting out twenty ft (6 m), is on the northeast side, overlooking the lagoon and facing Washington. A stepped terrace on the River Entrance leads down to the lagoon; and a landing dock was used until the late 1960s to ferry personnel between Bolling Air Force Base and the Pentagon. The main entrance for visitors is on the southeast side, as are the Pentagon Metro station and the bus station.

There is also a concourse on the southeast side of the second floor of the building, which contains a mini-shopping mall. The south parking lot adjoins the southwest façade, and the west side of the Pentagon faces Washington Boulevard.

The concentric rings are designated from the center out as "A" through "E" (with additional "F" and "G" rings in the basement). "E" Ring offices are the only ones with outside views and are generally occupied by senior officials. Office numbers go clockwise around each of the rings, and have two parts: a nearest-corridor number (1 to 10), followed by a bay number (00 to 99), so office numbers range from 100 to 1099. These corridors radiate out from the central courtyard, with corridor 1 beginning with the Concourse's south end. Each numbered radial corridor intersects with the corresponding numbered group of offices (for example, corridor 5 divides the 500 series office block). There are a number of historical displays in the building, particularly in the "A" and "E" rings.

Subterranean floors in the Pentagon are lettered "B" for Basement and "M" for Mezzanine. The concourse is on the second floor at the Metro entrance. Above-ground floors are numbered 1 to 5. Room numbers are given as the floor, concentric ring, and office number (which is in turn the nearest corridor number followed by the bay number). Thus, office 2B315 is on the second floor, B ring, and nearest to corridor 3 (between corridors 2 and 3). One way to get to this office would be to go to the second floor, get to the A (innermost) ring, go to and take corridor 3, and then turn left on ring B to get to bay 15.

It is possible for a person to walk between any two points in the Pentagon in less than ten minutes, though the most optimal route may involve a brisk walk, routing through the open-air central courtyard, or both. The complex includes eating and exercise facilities as well as meditation and prayer rooms.

Just south of the Pentagon are Pentagon City and Crystal City, extensive shopping, business, and high-density residential districts in Arlington. Arlington National Cemetery is to the north. The Pentagon is surrounded by the relatively complex Pentagon road network.

The Pentagon has six Washington, DC, ZIP Codes (despite its location in Virginia): The Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the four service branches each have their own ZIP Code.

View from the south

History

Background

Main Navy Building (foreground) and the Munitions Building were temporary structures built during World War I on the National Mall. The Department of War headquarters was in the Munitions Building for several years before moving into the Pentagon.

Before the Pentagon was built, the United States Department of War was headquartered in the Munitions Building, a temporary structure erected during World War I along Constitution Avenue on the National Mall. The War Department, which was a civilian agency created to administer the U.S. Army, was spread out in additional temporary buildings on the National Mall, as well as dozens of other buildings in Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia. In the late 1930s, during the Great Depression and federal construction program, a new War Department Building was constructed at 21st and C Streets in Foggy Bottom but, upon completion, the new building did not solve the department's space problem. It became the headquarters of the Department of State.

When World War II broke out in Europe in 1939, the War Department rapidly expanded to deal with current issues and in anticipation that the United States would be drawn into the conflict. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson found the situation unacceptable, with the Munitions Building overcrowded and department offices spread out in additional sites.

Stimson told U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in May 1941 that the War Department needed additional space. On 17 July 1941, a congressional hearing took place, organized by Congressman Clifton Woodrum (D-VA), regarding proposals for new War Department buildings. Woodrum pressed Brigadier General Eugene Reybold, who was representing the War Department at the hearing, for an "overall solution" to the department's "space problem", rather than building yet more temporary buildings. Reybold agreed to report back to the congressman within five days. The War Department called upon its construction chief, General Brehon Somervell, to come up with a plan.

Planning

1945 map of the Pentagon road network, including present-day State Route 27 and part of the Shirley Highway, as well as the Main Navy and Munitions Buildings near the Lincoln Memorial

Government officials agreed that the War Department building, officially designated Federal Office Building No 1, should be constructed across the Potomac River, in Arlington County, Virginia. Requirements for the new building were that it be no more than four stories tall, and that it use a minimal amount of steel to reserve that resource for war needs. The requirements meant that, instead of rising vertically, the building would be sprawling over a large area. Possible sites for the building included the Department of Agriculture's Arlington Experimental Farm, adjacent to Arlington National Cemetery, and the obsolete Hoover Field site.

The site originally chosen was Arlington Farms, which had an asymmetric, roughly pentagonal shape, so the building was planned accordingly as an irregular pentagon. Concerned that the new building could obstruct the view of Washington, D.C., from Arlington Cemetery, President Roosevelt ended up selecting the Hoover Airport site instead. The building retained the pentagonal layout because Roosevelt liked it and a major redesign at that stage would have been costly. Freed of the constraints of the Arlington Farms site, the building was modified as a regular pentagon. It resembled star forts constructed during the gunpowder age.

On 28 July, Congress authorized funding for a new Department of War building in Arlington, which would house the entire department under one roof. President Roosevelt officially approved of the Hoover Airport site on 2 September. While the project went through the approval process in late July 1941, Somervell selected the contractors, including John McShain, Inc. of Philadelphia, which had built Washington National Airport in Arlington, the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, and the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, along with Wise Contracting Company, Inc. and Doyle and Russell, both from Virginia. In addition to the Hoover Airport site and other government-owned land, construction of the Pentagon required an additional 287 acres (1.16 km2), which were acquired at a cost of $2.2 million (equivalent to $31.6 million in 2021). The Hell's Bottom neighborhood, consisting of numerous pawnshops, factories, approximately 150 homes, and other buildings around Columbia Pike, was cleared to make way for the Pentagon. Later, 300 acres (1.2 km2) of land were transferred to Arlington National Cemetery and to Fort Myer, leaving 280 acres (1.1 km2) for the Pentagon.

Construction

The Pentagon (light blue) compared to large ships and buildings:
  The Pentagon, 1,414 feet, 431 m
  RMS Queen Mary 2, 1,132 feet, 345 m
  USS Enterprise, 1,123 feet, 342 m
  Hindenburg, 804 feet, 245 m
  Yamato, 863 feet, 263 m
  Empire State Building, 1,454 feet, 443 m
  Knock Nevis, ex-Seawise Giant, 1,503 feet, 458 m
  Apple Park, 1,522 feet, 464 m

Contracts totaling $31,100,000 (equivalent to $446 million in 2021) were finalized with McShain and the other contractors on 11 September 1941, and ground was broken for the Pentagon the same day. Among the design requirements, Somervell required the structural design to accommodate floor loads of up to 150 psi (1,000 kPa), which was done in case the building became a records storage facility at some time after the end of the current war. A minimal amount of steel was used as it was in short supply during World War II. Instead, the Pentagon was built as a reinforced concrete structure, using 680,000 tons of sand dredged from the Potomac River, and a lagoon was created beneath the Pentagon's river entrance. To minimize steel usage, concrete ramps were built rather than installing elevators. Indiana limestone was used for the building's façade.

Architectural and structural design work for the Pentagon proceeded simultaneously with construction, with initial drawings provided in early October 1941, and most of the design work completed by 1 June 1942. At times the construction work got ahead of the design, with different materials used than those specified in the plans. Pressure to speed up design and construction intensified after the attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, with Somervell demanding that 1 million sq ft (9.3 ha) of space at the Pentagon be available for occupation by 1 April 1943. David J. Witmer replaced Bergstrom as chief architect on 11 April after Bergstrom resigned. Unrelated to the Pentagon project, he was charged with improper conduct while having served as president of the American Institute of Architects. Construction was completed 15 January 1943.

Soil conditions of the site – on the Potomac River floodplain – presented challenges, as did the varying elevations across the site, which ranged from ten to forty ft (3 to 12 m) above sea level. Two retaining walls were built to compensate for the elevation variations, and cast-in-place piles were used to deal with the soil conditions. Construction of the Pentagon was completed in approximately 16 months at a total cost of $83 million (equivalent to $1.19 billion in 2021). The building's approximate height is 77 ft (23 m), and each of the five sides is 921 ft (281 m) in length.

The building was built wedge by wedge; each wedge was occupied as soon as it was completed, even as construction continued on the remaining wedges.

The Pentagon was designed in accordance with the racial segregation laws in force in the state of Virginia at the time, with separate eating and lavatory accommodations for white and black persons. While the sets of lavatories were side by side, the dining areas for blacks were located in the basement. When Roosevelt visited the facility before its dedication, he ordered removal of the "Whites Only" signs in segregated areas. When the Governor of Virginia protested, Roosevelt's administration responded that the Pentagon, although on Virginia land, was under Federal jurisdiction. In addition, its military and civilian Federal employees were going to comply with the President's policies. As a result, the Pentagon was the only building in Virginia where racial segregation laws were not enforced (these laws were not overturned until 1965). The side-by-side sets of restrooms still exist, but have been integrated in practice since the building was occupied.

Hall of Heroes

The Hall of Heroes on the main concourse

On the building's main concourse is the Hall of Heroes, opened 1968 and dedicated to the more than 3,460 recipients of the Medal of Honor, the United States' highest military decoration. The three versions of the Medal of Honor – Army, Sea Service (for the Marine Corps, Navy, and Coast Guard), and Air Force (for the Air Force and Space Force) – are on display along with the names of recipients.

The Hall is also used for promotions, retirements, and other ceremonies.

Renovation

From 1998 to 2011, the Pentagon was completely gutted and reconstructed in phases to bring it up to modern standards and improve security and efficiency. Asbestos was removed and all office windows were sealed.

As originally built, most Pentagon office space consisted of open bays which spanned an entire ring. These offices used cross-ventilation from operable windows instead of air conditioning for cooling. Gradually, bays were subdivided into private offices with many using window air conditioning units. With renovations now complete, the new space includes a return to open office bays, and a new Universal Space Plan of standardized office furniture and partitions developed by Studios Architecture.

Pentagon tours were suspended during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Incidents

Protests

Military police keep back Vietnam War protesters during their sit-in on 21 October 1967, at the mall entrance to the Pentagon.

During the late 1960s, the Pentagon became a focal point for protests against the Vietnam War. A group of 2,500 women, organized by Women Strike for Peace, demonstrated outside Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara's office at the Pentagon on 15 February 1967. In May 1967, a group of 20 demonstrators held a sit-in outside the Joint Chiefs of Staff's office, which lasted four days before they were arrested. In one of the better known incidents, on 21 October 1967, some 35,000 anti-war protesters organized by the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, gathered for a demonstration at the Defense Department (the "March on the Pentagon"). They were confronted by some 2,500 armed soldiers. During the protest, a famous picture was taken, where George Harris placed carnations into the soldiers' gun barrels. The march concluded with an attempt to "exorcise" the building.

On 19 May 1972, the Weather Underground Organization bombed a fourth-floor women's restroom, in "retaliation" for the Nixon administration's bombing of Hanoi in the final stages of the Vietnam War.

On 17 March 2007, 4,000 to 15,000 people (estimates vary significantly) protested the Iraq War by marching from the Lincoln Memorial to the Pentagon's north parking lot.

September 11, 2001 attacks

On September 11, 2001, coincidentally the 60th anniversary of the Pentagon's groundbreaking, five al-Qaeda affiliated hijackers took control of American Airlines Flight 77, en route from Washington Dulles International Airport to Los Angeles International Airport, and deliberately crashed the Boeing 757 airliner into the western side of the Pentagon at 9:37 am EDT as part of the September 11 attacks. The impact of the plane severely damaged the outer ring of one wing of the building and caused its partial collapse. At the time of the attacks, the Pentagon was under renovation and many offices were unoccupied, resulting in fewer casualties. Only 800 of 4,500 people who would have been in the area were there because of the work. Furthermore, the area hit, on the side of the Heliport façade, was the section best prepared for such an attack. The renovation there, improvements which resulted from the Oklahoma City bombing, had nearly been completed.

It was the only area of the Pentagon with a sprinkler system, and it had been reconstructed with a web of steel columns and bars to withstand bomb blasts. The steel reinforcement, bolted together to form a continuous structure through all of the Pentagon's five floors, kept that section of the building from collapsing for 30 minutes—enough time for hundreds of people to crawl out to safety. The area struck by the plane also had blast-resistant windows—2 inches (5 cm) thick and 2,500 pounds (1,100 kg) each—that stayed intact during the crash and fire. It had fire doors that opened automatically and newly built exits that allowed people to get out.

The damage from the attack

Contractors already involved with the renovation were given the added task of rebuilding the sections damaged in the attacks. This additional project was named the "Phoenix Project" and was charged with having the outermost offices of the damaged section occupied by 11 September 2002.

When the damaged section of the Pentagon was repaired, a small indoor memorial and chapel were added at the point of impact. For the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, a memorial of 184 beams of light shone up from the center courtyard of the Pentagon, one light for each victim of the attack. In addition, an American flag is hung each year on the side of the Pentagon damaged in the attacks, and the side of the building is illuminated at night with blue lights. After the attacks, plans were developed for an outdoor memorial, with construction underway in 2006. This Pentagon Memorial consists of a park on 2 acres (8,100 m2) of land, containing 184 benches, one dedicated to each victim. The benches are aligned along the line of Flight 77 according to the victims' ages, from 3 to 71. The park opened to the public on 11 September 2008.

Philosophy of architecture

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Philosophy of architecture is a branch of philosophy of art, dealing with aesthetic value of architecture, its semantics and relations with development of culture.

History

Early history

Plato, whose influence on architecture is widely documented (e.g., 'idealism', 'neo-Platonic' architecture), may be counted as part of a classical geometric model of cosmology, the popularity of which could be attributed to earlier thinkers such as Pythagoras. In early history, philosophers distinguished architecture ('technion') from building ('demiorgos'), attributing the former to mental traits, and the latter to the divine or natural. It was only with Socratic irony that the name craftsman could become representative of a religious deity. The presence of some degree of formalism ala Platonism continues to be an important trait in distinguishing one architectural style from another, and thus in distinguishing the philosophy of a style.

Due to the nature of critique, the philosophy of architecture is an outgrowth of the philosophy of art, which began to be expressed in books on architecture and history of architecture during the latter half of the twentieth century. Prior to that, largely because of its reliance on technology and engineering, architecture was seen as incompatible, or beneath, the proper subject areas of classical aesthetics as delimited by, notably, Immanuel Kant and Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, with their ideal of "pure art."

Modern period

Panopticon. Drawing by Jeremy Bentham in 1791.

As it was noted by postmodern philosopher Michel Foucault, the architecture is able to set the life of society, and therefore it is particularly important for understanding of the person's values and culture. In "Discipline and Punish," Foucault analyzed contemporary culture through architecture project of principally new prison Panopticon. The point of this project by Jeremy Bentham was to create a special transparent environment for prisoners, where everyone would be under constant surveillance. Although the project was not realized, Bentham's thought deeply influenced ideology of prisons, changing social practices of punishment. Simultaneously with its main conclusions, Foucault reached other goal - his instrumental use of architecture in cultural studies showed the potential of this philosophical theme.

However, philosophy of architecture as a full-fledged part of the Philosophy of Art would not have been possible without the Avant-garde`s shift of the aesthetic paradigm. Art, set in the conditions of mechanical reproduction of the image, was forced to look for new ways. Around the same time architectural styles of Constructivism and Functionalism find way to justify new, totally engineering aesthetics. Side of the architecture, which had been considered a shame (as a sign of its connection with the pragmatic needs of man and society), became a major advantage, central part of new system of aesthetic values. Cubism and Futurism set aesthetic, full of mechanized, slaughtered, brutal forms, what was very close to the same engineering ideal. All this created more than favorable environment to change status of architecture in our system of art, as well as our understanding of art by itself.

Postmodernism

Photography "Stuyvesant Town - Peter Cooper Village," according to Martin R. it is an architectural work, which may serve as one of the first manifestations of postmodernism

Architecture assumed much more significant role after establishing of the phenomenon of Postmodernism. According to R. Martin "it remains surprising how many influential accounts of cultural postmodernism make reference to architecture." Some scholars go so far as to claim that the entire post-modernism comes from the practice of architecture, and the rejection of "style of Modern" as an architectural style, and by so architects terminologically formulated postmodernism. Thus, F. Jameson writes that "it is in the realm of architecture, however, that modifications in aesthetic production are most dramatically visible, and that their theoretical problems have been most centrally raised and articulated (...) it was indeed from architectural debates that my own conception of post-modernism (...) initially began to emerge." As it was noted by researchers, "Barthes and Eco, taking their cue from Russian Formalism, see norm breaking as the mark of the aesthetic (sc., the aesthetic code). Art is characteristically inventive in its capacity to have signs do duty as signifier of further meanings in a potentially endless play upon convention as well as within it or on its margin." So important to postmodern writers like R. Barthes and U. Eco, saw architecture as a source of revolutionary innovations in art.

Photo of casino "Luxor", an example of architecture of "Las Vegas", which formed the basis for post-modernist manifesto of Robert Venturi and has played a key role in the development of post-modernism according to F. Jameson

F. Jameson believes that there is a special relationship between postmodernism and American architecture, in which the birth of a national architecture coincided, in his opinion, with the emergence of the terminology or even the reality of postmodernism. However, not all researchers agree with his post-modern "architectural origins," so Andreas Huyssen, suggests that the conceptual frame of postmodernism has been defined within certain movements of literature. However, this researcher also notes the special role of architecture in the development of post-modernism. Martin describes, that "Huyssen credits architecture with helping to disseminate the term postmodernism, originally from literature, into the expanded aesthetic sphere during the 1970s." Lyotard contends that postmodern architects have nothing in common with true Postmodernism and, as Lyotard states it in his article, Answering the Question: What Is Postmodernism?: "under the name of postmodernism, architects are getting rid of the Bauhaus project, throwing out the baby of experimentation with the bathwater of functionalism."

A special figure for the philosophy of architecture can be considered the architect Robert Venturi, whose books may have played a no lesser role in the development of postmodernism, than his stylistic experiments in architecture. R. Venturi first lead attention of architects to pop-art. In his rejection of architectural modernism, Venturi gave rise to the new cultural setting. By this Venturi showed a deep connection between civilization and architectural forms.

Wittgenstein and philosophy of architecture

A photo of Wittgenstein House

The Wittgenstein House is considered one of the most important examples of interactions between philosophy and architecture. Built by renowned Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, the house has been the subject of extensive research about the relationship between its stylistic features, Wittgenstein's personality, and his philosophy.

Fallingwater

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fallingwater path from house to guest house

Fallingwater is a house designed by the architect Frank Lloyd Wright in 1935 in the Laurel Highlands of southwest Pennsylvania, about 70 miles (110 km) southeast of Pittsburgh in the United States. It is built partly over a waterfall on Bear Run in the Mill Run section of Stewart Township, Fayette County, Pennsylvania. The house was designed to serve as a weekend retreat for Liliane and Edgar J. Kaufmann, the owner of Pittsburgh's Kaufmann's Department Store.

After its completion, Time called Fallingwater Wright's "most beautiful job" and it is listed among Smithsonian's "Life List of 28 Places to See Before You Die". The house was designated a National Historic Landmark on May 11, 1976. In 1991, members of the American Institute of Architects named Fallingwater the "best all-time work of American architecture" and in 2007, it was ranked 29th on the list of America's Favorite Architecture according to the AIA.

The house and seven other Wright constructions were inscribed as a World Heritage Site under the title, "The 20th-Century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright", in 2019.

History

Fallingwater, as seen from Bear Run

At age 67, Frank Lloyd Wright was given the opportunity to design and construct three buildings. With his three works of the late 1930s, (Fallingwater, the Johnson Wax Building in Racine, Wisconsin, and the Herbert Jacobs house in Madison, Wisconsin), Wright regained his prominence in the architectural community.

The Kaufmanns

Edgar J. Kaufmann was a Pittsburgh businessman and president of Kaufmann's Department Store. Liliane Kaufmann, like her husband, was a keen outdoors person; she enjoyed both hiking and horseback riding. She had a strong aesthetic sensibility which is reflected in the house's design.

Edgar and Liliane's only child, Edgar Kaufmann Jr., became the catalyst for his father's relationship with Frank Lloyd Wright. In the summer of 1934, Kaufmann read Frank Lloyd Wright's An Autobiography (1932) and traveled to meet him at his home in Wisconsin in late September. Within three weeks, he began an apprenticeship at the Taliesin Fellowship, a communal architecture program established in 1932 by Wright and his wife, Olgivanna. It was during a visit with their son at Taliesin in November 1934 that Edgar and Liliane Kaufmann first met Wright.

The Kaufmanns lived in La Tourelle, a French Norman estate in Fox Chapel designed in 1923 by Pittsburgh architect Benno Janssen. However, the family also owned a remote property outside Pittsburgh—a small cabin near a waterfall—which was used as a summer retreat. When these cabins deteriorated, Kaufmann contacted Wright.

On December 18, 1934, Wright visited Bear Run and asked for a survey of the area around the waterfall. One was prepared by Fayette Engineering Company of Uniontown, Pennsylvania, including all the site's boulders, trees, and topography, and forwarded to Wright in March 1935.

Construction

The strong horizontal and vertical lines are a distinctive feature of Fallingwater

As reported by Frank Lloyd Wright's apprentices at Taliesin, Kaufmann was in Milwaukee on September 22, nine months after their initial meeting, and called Wright at home early Sunday morning to surprise him with the news that he would be visiting him that day. Wright had told Kaufmann in earlier communications that he had been making progress on the plans but in actuality, he had not done anything. After breakfast, amid a group of very nervous apprentices, Wright calmly drew the plans in the two hours in which it took Kaufmann to drive to Taliesin. Witnesses Edgar Tafel and Robert Mosher, Taliesin apprentices at the time, later stated that when Wright was designing the plans he spoke of how the spaces would be used, directly linking form to function.

Wright designed the home above the waterfall: Kaufmann had expected it to be below the falls to afford a view of the cascades. It has been said that he was initially very upset with this change.

The Kaufmanns planned to entertain large groups so the house needed to be larger than the original plot allowed. They also requested separate bedrooms as well as a bedroom for their adult son and an additional guest room. A cantilevered structure was used to address these requests. The structural design for Fallingwater was undertaken by Wright in association with staff engineers Mendel Glickman and William Wesley Peters, who had been responsible for the columns in Wright's revolutionary design for the Johnson Wax Headquarters.

Preliminary plans were issued to Kaufmann for approval on October 15, 1935, after which Wright made an additional visit to the site to generate a cost estimate for the job. In December 1935, an old rock quarry was reopened to the west of the site to provide the stones needed for the house's walls. Wright visited only periodically during construction, assigning his apprentice Robert Mosher as his permanent on-site representative. The final drawings were issued by Wright in March 1936 with work beginning on the bridge and main house in April.

The construction was plagued by conflicts between Wright, Kaufmann, and the contractor. Uncomfortable with what he saw as Wright's insufficient experience using reinforced concrete, Kaufmann had the architect's daring cantilever design reviewed by a firm of consulting engineers. Upon receiving their report, Wright took offense, immediately requesting that Kaufmann return his drawings and indicating that he was withdrawing from the project. Kaufmann relented to Wright's gambit and the engineer's report was subsequently buried within a stone wall of the house.

For the cantilevered floors, Wright and his team used upside-down T-shaped beams integrated into a monolithic concrete slab which formed both the ceiling of the space below and provided resistance against compression. The contractor, Walter Hall, also an engineer, produced independent computations and argued for increasing the reinforcing steel in the first floor's slab—Wright refused the suggestion. There was speculation over the years that the contractor quietly doubled the amount of reinforcement versus Kaufmann's consulting engineers doubling the amount of steel specified by Wright. During the process of restoration begun in 1995, it was confirmed that additional concrete reinforcement had been added.

In addition, the contractor did not build in a slight upward incline in the formwork for the cantilever to compensate for its settling and deflection. Once the formwork was removed, the cantilever developed a noticeable sag. Upon learning of the unapproved steel addition, Wright recalled Mosher. With Kaufmann's approval, the consulting engineers had a supporting wall installed under the main supporting beam for the west terrace. When Wright discovered it on a site visit, he had Mosher discreetly remove the top course of stones. When Kaufmann later confessed to what had been done, Wright showed him what Mosher had done and pointed out that the cantilever had held up for the past month under test loads without the wall's support.

The main house was completed in 1938 and the guest house was completed the following year.

Cost

The original estimated cost for building Fallingwater was $35,000. The final cost for the home and guest house was $155,000, which included $75,000 for the house; $22,000 for finishings and furnishings; $50,000 for the guest house, garage and servants' quarters; and an $8,000 architect's fee. From 1938 through 1941, more than $22,000 was spent on additional details and for changes in the hardware and lighting.

The total cost of $155,000, adjusted for inflation, is equivalent to about $3.3 million in 2022. The cost of the house's restoration in 2001 was estimated to be $11.5 million (approximately $19 million in 2022).

Usage

Fallingwater was the Kaufmann family's weekend home from 1937 until 1963, when Edgar Kaufmann Jr. donated the property to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. The family retreated to Fallingwater on weekends to escape the heat and smoke of industrial Pittsburgh. Liliane enjoyed swimming in the nude and collecting modern art, especially the works of Diego Rivera, who was a guest at the country house.

[Wright] understood that people were creatures of nature, hence an architecture which conformed to nature would conform to what was basic in people. For example, although all of Falling Water [sic] is opened by broad bands of windows, people inside are sheltered as in a deep cave, secure in the sense of the hill behind them.

— Edgar Kaufmann Jr.

Design

The interior of Fallingwater, showing a sitting area with furnishings designed by Wright
 
Viewing platform at the stream
 
Driveway leading to the entrance of Fallingwater

Fallingwater stands as one of Wright's greatest masterpieces both for its dynamism and for its integration with its striking natural surroundings. Fallingwater has been described as an architectural tour de force of Wright's organic architecture. Wright's passion for Japanese architecture was strongly reflected in the design of Fallingwater, particularly in the importance of interpenetrating exterior and interior spaces and the strong emphasis placed on harmony between man and nature. Contemporary Japanese architect Tadao Ando has said of the house:

I think Wright learned the most important aspect of architecture, the treatment of space, from Japanese architecture. When I visited Fallingwater in Pennsylvania, I found that same sensibility of space. But there was the additional sounds of nature that appealed to me.

The organically designed private residence was intended to be a nature retreat for its owners. The house is well-known for its connection to the site. It is built on top of an active waterfall that flows beneath the house.

The fireplace hearth in the living room integrates boulders found on the site and upon which the house was built—a ledge rock which protrudes up to a foot through the living room floor was left in place to link the outside with the inside. Wright had initially intended that the ledge be cut flush with the floor but this had been one of the family's favorite sunning spots, so Kaufmann suggested that it be left as it was. The stone floors are waxed while the hearth is left plain, giving the impression of dry rocks protruding from a stream.

Integration with the setting extends even to small details. For example, where glass meets stone walls no metal frame is used; rather, the glass and its horizontal dividers were run into a caulked recess in the stonework so that the stone walls appear uninterrupted by glazing. From the cantilevered living room, a stairway leads directly down to an isolated platform at the stream below. A connecting space which connects the main house with the guest and servant level, a natural spring drips water inside, which is then channeled back out. Bedrooms are small, some with low ceilings to encourage people outward toward the open social areas, decks, and outdoors.

Bear Run and the sound of its water permeate the house, especially during the spring when the snow is melting, and locally quarried stone walls and cantilevered terraces resembling the nearby rock formations are meant to be in harmony. The design incorporates broad expanses of windows and balconies which reach out into their surroundings. In conformance with Wright's views, the main entry door is away from the falls.

On the hillside above the main house stands a four-bay carport, servants' quarters, and a guest house. These attached outbuildings were built two years later using the same quality of materials and attention to detail as the main house. The guest quarters feature a spring-fed swimming pool which overflows and drains to the river below.

Wright had initially planned to have the house blend into its natural settings in rural Pennsylvania. In doing so, he limited his palette to two colors, a light ocher for the concrete and his signature Cherokee red for the steel.

After Fallingwater was deeded to the public, three carport bays were enclosed at the direction of Kaufmann Jr. to be used by museum visitors to view a presentation at the end of their guided tours on the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy (to which the home was entrusted). Kaufmann Jr. designed its interior himself to specifications found in other Fallingwater interiors by Wright.

A model of the house was featured at the Museum of Modern Art in 2009.

Western Pennsylvania Conservancy

The cantilevers at Fallingwater

After his father's death in 1955, Kaufmann Jr. inherited Fallingwater, continuing to use it as a weekend retreat until the early 1960s. Increasingly concerned with ensuring Fallingwater's preservation and following his father's wishes, he entrusted the home and approximately 1,500 acres of land to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy in tribute to his parents. He guided the organization's thinking about Fallingwater's administration, care, and educational programming and was a frequent visitor as guided tours began in 1964. Kaufmann's partner, architect and designer Paul Mayén, also contributed to the legacy of Fallingwater with a design for the visitor center, completed in 1981. The house attracts more than 160,000 visitors from around the world each year.

Preservation

Miniature replica of the Fallingwater building at MRRV, at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh

Fallingwater had shown signs of deterioration over the past 80 years due in large part to its exposure to humidity and sunlight. The severe freeze-thaw conditions of southwest Pennsylvania and water infiltration also affected the structural materials. Because of these conditions, a thorough cleaning of the exterior stone walls is performed periodically.

Fallingwater's six bathrooms are lined with cork tiles. When used as a flooring material, the cork tiles were hand-waxed, giving them a shiny finish that supplemented their natural ability to repel water. Over time the cork has begun to show water damage, requiring the Conservancy to make frequent repairs.

In addition, Fallingwater's structural system includes a series of very bold reinforced concrete cantilevered balconies. Pronounced deflection of the concrete cantilevers was noticed as soon as the formwork was removed during construction. This deflection increased over time, eventually reaching 7 inches (180 mm) over a 15 foot (4.6 m) span.

In 1995, the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy commissioned a study of the site's structural integrity. Structural engineers analyzed the movement of the cantilevers over time and conducted radar analysis to locate and quantify the reinforcement. The data proved the contractor had indeed added reinforcement over Wright's plan; nevertheless, the cantilevers were still insufficiently reinforced. Both the concrete and its steel reinforcement were close to their failure limits. An architectural firm was hired to fix the problem beginning with the installation of temporary girders in 1997.

In 2002, the structure was repaired permanently using post-tensioning. The living room flagstone floor blocks were individually tagged and removed. Blocks were joined to the concrete cantilever beams and floor joists; high-strength steel cables were fed through the blocks and exterior concrete walls and tightened using jacks. The floors and walls were then restored, leaving Fallingwater's interior and exterior appearance unchanged. Today, the cantilevers have sufficient support and the deflection has stopped. The Conservancy continues to monitor movement in the cantilevers.

Depictions in popular culture

Building

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building

A building or edifice, is an enclosed structure with a roof and walls standing more or less permanently in one place, such as a house or factory (although there's also portable buildings). Buildings come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and functions, and have been adapted throughout history for a wide number of factors, from building materials available, to weather conditions, land prices, ground conditions, specific uses, prestige, and aesthetic reasons. To better understand the term building compare the list of nonbuilding structures.

Buildings serve several societal needs – occupancy, primarily as shelter from weather, security, living space, privacy, to store belongings, and to comfortably live and work. A building as a shelter represents a physical division of the human habitat, a place of comfort and safety and the outside, a place that at times may be harsh and harmful.


Ever since the first cave paintings, buildings have also become objects or canvasses of much artistic expression. In recent years, interest in sustainable planning and building practices has also become an intentional part of the design process of many new buildings and other structures, usually a green building.

Definition

The skyscrapers under construction in Kalasatama, Helsinki, Finland (2021)

The word building is both a noun and a verb: the structure itself and the act of making it. As a noun, a building is 'a structure that has a roof and walls and stands more or less permanently in one place'; "there was a three-storey building on the corner"; "it was an imposing edifice". In the broadest interpretation a fence or wall is a building. However, the word structure is used more broadly than building including natural and human-made formations and does not necessarily have walls. Structure is more likely to be used for a fence. Sturgis' Dictionary included that "[building] differs from architecture in excluding all idea of artistic treatment; and it differs from construction in the idea of excluding scientific or highly skilful treatment." As a verb, building is the act of construction.

Structural height in technical usage is the height to the highest architectural detail on building from street-level. Depending on how they are classified, spires and masts may or may not be included in this height. Spires and masts used as antennas are not generally included. The definition of a low-rise vs. a high-rise building is a matter of debate, but generally three stories or less is considered low-rise.

History

There is clear evidence of homebuilding from around 18,000 BC. Buildings became common during the Neolithic (see Neolithic architecture).

Types

Belle Époque city-house on Strada Arthur Verona in Bucharest, Romania, currently part of a bookshop
 
The Mitilineu House, a city-house in Bucharest, dating from 1898

Residential

Single-family residential buildings are most often called houses or homes. Multi-family residential buildings containing more than one dwelling unit are called a duplex or an apartment building. A condominium is an apartment that the occupant owns rather than rents. Houses may also be built in pairs (semi-detached), in terraces where all but two of the houses have others either side; apartments may be built round courtyards or as rectangular blocks surrounded by a piece of ground of varying sizes. Houses which were built as a single dwelling may later be divided into apartments or bedsitters; they may also be converted to another use e.g. an office or a shop. hotels, especially of the extended stay variety (like apartels) can also be classed as residential.

Building types may range from huts to multimillion-dollar high-rise apartment blocks able to house thousands of people. Increasing settlement density in buildings (and smaller distances between buildings) is usually a response to high ground prices resulting from many people wanting to live close to work or similar attractors. Other common building materials are brick, concrete or combinations of either of these with stone.

Residential buildings have different names for their use depending if they are seasonal include holiday cottage (vacation home) or timeshare; size such as a cottage or great house; value such as a shack or mansion; manner of construction such as a log home or mobile home;, architectural style such as a mock castle or Victorian house, proximity to the ground or water such as Earth sheltering the earth sheltered house, stilt house, or houseboat \ floating home. Also if the residents are in need of special care, or society considers them to dangerous to have freedom, there's residential total institutions such as nursing homes, orphanages, psychiatric hospitals or prison; or in group housing like barracks or dormitories.

Historically many people lived in communal buildings called longhouses, smaller dwellings called pit-houses and houses combined with barns sometimes called housebarns.

Buildings are defined to be substantial, permanent structures so other dwelling forms such as yurts, and motorhomes are dwellings but not buildings.

Commercial

A commercial building is one in which at least one business is based, but where people don't live. Examples include stores, restaurants, and hotels.

Industrial

Industrial buildings are those in which heavy industry is done, such as manufacturing. These edifices include warehouses and factories.

Agricultural

Agricultural buildings are the outbuildings located on farms, like barns.

Mixed use

Some buildings incorporate several or multiple different uses, most commonly are those that combine commercial and residential uses.

Complex

Aluminum panel framed steel building, in Korea.

Sometimes a group of inter-related (and possibly inter-connected) builds are referred to as a complex – for example a housing complex, educational complex, hospital complex, etc.

Creation

The practice of designing, constructing, and operating buildings is most usually a collective effort of different groups of professionals and trades. Depending on the size, complexity, and purpose of a particular building project, the project team may include:

Regardless of their size or intended use, all buildings in the US must comply with zoning ordinances, building codes and other regulations such as fire codes, life safety codes and related standards.

Vehicles—such as trailers, caravans, ships and passenger aircraft—are treated as "buildings" for life safety purposes.

Ownership and funding

Building services

Physical plant

The BB&T Building in Macon, Georgia is constructed of aluminum.

Any building requires a certain general amount of internal infrastructure to function, which includes such elements like heating / cooling, power and telecommunications, water and wastewater etc. Especially in commercial buildings (such as offices or factories), these can be extremely intricate systems taking up large amounts of space (sometimes located in separate areas or double floors / false ceilings) and constitute a big part of the regular maintenance required.

Conveying systems

Systems for transport of people within buildings:

Systems for transport of people between interconnected buildings:

Building damage

A building in Massueville (Quebec, Canada), engulfed by fire

Buildings may be damaged during the construction of the building or during maintenance. There are several other reasons behind building damage like accidents such as storms, explosions, subsidence caused by mining, water withdrawal or poor foundations and landslides. Buildings also may suffer from fire damage and flooding in special circumstances. They may also become dilapidated through lack of proper maintenance or alteration work improperly carried out.

Hypothetical future buildings

Advances in construction technology, ideologies, etc may allow (or necessitate) the construction of new kinds of buildings and complexes, like an arcology.

Gene

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene Chromosome ...