How high can a building go? Well the Sears Tower is defensibly one of the best skyscrapers in the world in terms of engineering. It is not probable that architects and engineers gave up trying to build something that is world’s tallest building. Structural engineer William LeMessurier designed a building that is about half a mile high. At the same time an architect named Robert Sobel declares that with our technology, we could build a skyscraper 500 stories high.
On April 19,1995 at 9:02 a.m, an explosion took place on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma city. The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was a federal complex designed and constructed to hold sixteen federal agencies, various centers and offices; consisting of the United States Secret Service, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, Social Security Administration, General Services Administration, Veterans Administration, and Drug Enforcement Administration, Department of Health and Human Services, Agriculture, Housing and Urban Development, Labor, and Transportation, Defense Audit Agency and Investigative Services, U.S. Marine Corps and Army Recruiting, Customs office, General Accounting Office 's, Credit Union, Raymond’s Place Snack Bar, Conference room, and America 's Kids Day Care Center. Altogether the federal building employed an estimated five hundred and fifty personal. The explosion nearly disintegrated one of the third of the federal building and created havoc around a 16 block radius, an estimated $652 million worth of damages altogether. The explosion took the lives of one hundred and sixty eight individuals, 19 of which were children and mounting non-fatal injuries of over eight hundred individuals. These lives were taken away by the worst domestic terrorist attack on the United States soil and the first to be conducted at the center of the
An investigation into the design flaw of two floating balconies above the atrium of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, is discussed in this report. The following investigation includes a closer look at disputes in design between the engineering consultants and the fabrication company, as well as an examination of load capacity. In the design, three walkways were intertwined between the second, third, and fourth floors above the hotel’s atrium (Leyendecker, E., Marshall, R., Pfrang, E., & Woodward, K., 1982). The second floor’s walkway was suspended from the fourth, which was suspended from the roof. The third floor’s walkway was hanging from the roof of the atrium, independent to the other two. When a collapse occurred on July 17, 1981, the fourth floor, which was suspended from the roof, collapsed and landed on top of the second floor. As a result, both floors crashed into the atrium at ground-level (Leyendecker, E., Marshall, R., Pfrang, E., & Woodward, K., 1982). The main causes of the collapse are questionable engineering ethics, negligence, and disputing agencies. These two factors resulted in a poor foundation with lack of consideration of large stress on the structure (Hyatt Regency Walkway Collapse, 2006).
One of them is the Washington Monument standing at a height of 555 feet, 5-1/8 inches tall. It was the tallest structure in the world at the time it was finished. It remains the tallest structure made of masonry still today. It is one of the most used symbols of Washington today (Moeller 1 Pg. 90).
Construction on The Empire State Building began on October 1, 1929 just a few weeks before the biggest stock market crash in United States history. On September 9, 1930, Al Smith the former Governor of New York, marked the spot of the cornerstone of what would become the worlds tallest and the century’s best building. That day Smith gave a speech to a crowd of over five thousand, which included mostly workers in hopes of a job on the upcoming project. The Empire State Building opened its doors just eight months later on Friday, May 1, 1931. For a country in midst of a great depression The Empire State Building was a symbol of hope in dark times and showed that Americans would persevere even in a
What is that strange orange brick building? Why should I care about that? That striking orange, brick building is the Guardian Building of downtown Detroit. When deciding to go to a historical site in the city, I was drawn in by the history of the place. I am relatively new to the city and when I heard about this place, I knew that’s where I wanted to go. When our group traveled together to the site, it became apparent why this building is not only important to Detroit, but to all cities. The Guardian Building was not only a great fixture of the past, but it is a leading example of the efforts to bring a city back to greatness.
Most people don’t know where it is. Most people have never seen it. Most people have never even heard of it. Despite this, the William B. Travis Building in Austin, Texas is where American history is made. Correction, this is where the events and memories of the present and near past get wedged into America’s long-term cultural memory or slip into oblivion. Since Texas buys or distributes 48 million textbooks annually, educational publishers tailor their products to fit the standards adopted by the Lone Star State. This makes the Texas state board of education, which is housed in the William B. Travis Building, the most influential state board of education in America. Every year this board draws national attention when it meets to adopt or reject proposed changes to the social studies curriculum, which are guidelines that will affect children across America for the next 10 years. In 2010, the most fiercely debated proposal was bringing Christianity into the coverage of American history. More specifically bringing the Christian “truth” about America’s founding into public schools. However, this debate has been going on since the early nineteenth century. People have always questioned how to reconcile the idea of America as a Christian nation with that of America as a beacon for religious freedom. To answer this question for ourselves, we must understand religious life in colonial America, religion in the Constitution and the debate surrounding Jefferson’s “Wall of Separation”
In 1973, the Sears Tower, now know as the Willis Tower was completed. At the time it was the tallest building in the United States.
The Freedom Tower also known as “One World Trade Center” is the tallest skyscraper in the western hemisphere, and the fifth tallest skyscraper in our planet earth. The building structure consists of 104 stories can also be described as the North Tower of the original World Trade Center. The Building location is 285 Fulton Street, Manhattan New York, United States 10007, as depicted in the map below Figure 1.
Believe it or not, skyscrapers have only been around since the the late 1880’s. The main reason for this was because the materials used to build buildings at the time could not support the weight of a skyscraper. If people wanted to build taller buildings, they had to use stronger materials that could withstand the weight of the building and keep it from collapsing. At the time, that material was steel, but there was a problem; steel was not mass produced at the time. This made it financially unethical to build with, the price of steel only began to drop after Andrew Carnegie created his steel business. Andrew Carnegie helped strengthen the American economy turning it into a world power by learning from his poverty when he was younger, starting his steel business which provided the world an important resource for the development of industry, taking advantage of workers to maximize profit, and devoting his later life to philanthropy.
Like in “Hills like White Elephants,” the lack of communication in this story is causing a crisis in the characters’ relationship. The couple is going through this critical situation because they can’t find a mutual base for their marriage. The husband and his wife are in different levels of maturity. He is already a grown up man who doesn’t care for a cat that is getting wet in the rain, while the wife still presents a childish behavior.
One of the innovations was the construction of skyscrapers. Before steel was used, a skyscraper was only considered four to five stories tall and was made out of stone. Very little light was able to get into the building because the structure would become unsafe if too many windows were put in. This made the building very dark, cold and damp. In 1885, with the innovation of steel, the first skyscraper, The Home Insurance Building, was built in Chicago, Illinois. This building paved the way for architects around the country to build taller and stronger skyscrapers into today’s times.
Today technology allows us to construct structures that we would never have been able to make in the past. Some of the creations are impressive based on what they accomplish but others are masterpieces in themselves. Man’s capability to build such tall buildings, as the skyscrapers we are familiar with covering our cities today, is a major expression of the advancements we have made as a culture. The power necessary to build such tall structures inspired competition between architects to see who could build the tallest one. One skyscraper that has inspired many and served as a model, for high rise buildings that were created after, is the Chrysler Building. The Chrysler Building serves as an identifying mark to anyone that
Since it was built, the Empire State Building has been attracting millions of tourists every year. This building is not only a national landmark and icon of New York City but a symbol of man’s attempt to achieve the impossible. The skyscraper is also the star in many movies such as An Affair to Remember, Sleepless in Seattle and King Kong. It stands out among the city’s skyline so people arriving by air, sea, or land can always pick out its distinctive shape (Britton 4). The Empire State Building is considered one of the eight wonders of the world and the people, the purpose, the construction, and the difficulties that went along with this wonder all started with a race to the sky.
I never thought I'd get engaged standing 1300 feet over the city of Chicago. It was a snowy Saturday in Chicago as my boyfriend and I wandered around the city. We decided to go see the top of the Willis Tower. At the top they have glass boxes that hang over the city with nothing under your feet but glass. As we walked into the lobby, the man at the elevator announced to everyone that the visibility at the top was very poor. I almost decided not to go, but my boyfriend convinced me that it was a good idea.
The tower gets its name from Gustave Eiffel, the man who designed the monument, and also did the girder work for the Statue of Liberty now in New York harbor. Looking at its open frame, it comes as no surprise that Eiffel was a bridge engineer when he entered the competition along with 100 other people to design this lasting monument to French culture. In fact, it took just two years and 300 steel workers for it to reach its pre-television height of 984 feet. The construction work began in January 1887 and was finished on March 31 1889. In spite of this height, the Eiffel Tower has just four floors. All are served by specially designed elevators that, instead of running up a vertical track, move along a curve dictated by the