CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY FINE ARTS LIBRARY Cornell University Library NA6574.M37K25 Building the "New Technology, 3 1924 015 396 777 e-N Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/cletails/cu31924015396777 THE V35< ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW V^rU »U& 1,FIFTY| CENTS JUNE 1916 FOUNDED 1887 NQVI ^ ™* ' «-Tv-r7-5«^'«- .-yr. >^^^^> mi ^ Wi A Reprint From The Architectural Review Volume IV (Old Series, Vol. XXI) June, 1916 Number 6 Building the "New Technology » By H. L. Kebbon Resident Architect THE new Technology buildings are completed according to schedule, and are ready for inspection by the visiting hosts of Alumni who are gathering from all over the country for the dedication exercises on June 14, 1916. The architectural scheme for these new buildings differs in two important essentials from the usual method of housing edu- cational institutions. These two differences are basic, and the reasons that have caused their adoption are of interest. First, instead of arranging the buildings about one axial line passing through the center of the site, two axes were established, both at right angles to the river front. (See Plate Lxvi.) Upon the axis di- viding the western half of the property it was decided to erect the main Technology buildings; and upon the east- ern axis the residential build- ings are to be grouped, in- cluding the Commons, Walker Memorial, Club House, Gym- nasium, and Athletic Field. The second radical depar- ture from the usual has been the adoption of one enormous structure, to provide space for all the different departments under a continuous roof, in- stead of dividing them into separate buildings. To take up first the divi- sion of the land — the scheme of dividing it into two dis- tinct units was adopted as a Fig. 1. matter of common-sense convenience. The general proportions of the property do not favor a group of buildings around a central courtyard and extending along the entire frontage of the prop- erty. The importance of the river frontage forced its recog- nition as the principal fajade, and it was obvious that the study buildings should adjoin Massachusetts Avenue, the main thor- oughfare, b>- which the buildings would be approached from the residential sections of Boston and Cambridge. Locating this main group of buildings on the western half of the site made it also possible to obtain the view into the courtyard when ap- proaching the site across the Harvard Bridge. From an architectural standpoint it became clear that the most effective treat- ment was a system of courts, with the principal court open- ing towards the water, thus giving a southern exposure; the whole dominated by a dome rising above a colon- naded portico at the northern end, which serves to tie the group together and to empha- size the character of the whole. Opening out from this Main Court to the east and west are two small lateral courts, which will have a certain at- mosphere of seclusion. All these courts will be paved, with grass plots framing the paved areas, and with trees Looking E.asl across Opening of Forecourt Fig. 2. View of Buildings from Corner of Massachusetts Avenue and Cfiarles River Road, Sept. 10, 1915 Copyright, igi6, by The Architectural Review Company 5. 86 THL ARCHITECTURAL RLVILW and shrubbery to add color and interest to the ensemble. Stone balustrades and seats also will tie the various units together. After consideration there was no doubt that a single building to house all the class-rooms, offices, and laboratories of the various departments was the most practical solution. The de- partments are so used that stu- dents are continually passing from one to another, and com- bining them in one building was an obvious convenience and saving of time. Sufficient space at the rear of the portion of the study group now completed is available for future expansion equal to twice the present needs of the Insti- tute, and this future construc- tion has been planned for in de- signing the present buildings. It is difficult to realize the magnitude of the task that has been imposed on the architect and engineers chosen to execute this work. It means that within a little o\'er two and a half Acars they have provided Technology with a magnificent new home, carefully and cffidentl}- planned to allow for the reception of the different departments, with all the special apparatus and equip- ment necessary to each, so that the>' may moA'e into their new quarters and continue instruc- tion without loss of time. The consummation of this great un- dertaking was made possible, first, because the architect chosen is a man of broad train- ing and ability, who has enthu- siastically and conscientiously devoted himself to the problem; and second, because the engi- neering corporation selected to carry on the constructive work is composed largely of Tech- nology men who have risen high in their profession, and who ha\'e succeeded, by means of their efficient organization, in pushing Iff I" sai i ^:. W' t L Fig. 3. Detail View across Entrance Portico back of Columns Fig 4. Detail of Column Capital the work ahead with untiring energy; and thus it is that the site on the banks of the Charles River has presented a scene of such marvelous and ever-in- creasing activity, particularly during the year just past. Due to Technology ideals, this undertaking has been conducted in an entirely original manner, and it is the purpose of this arti- cle to explain, in a general wa}-, the method used in conserving both time and energy. It is obvious that cooperation is the paramount condition to strive for in developing any scheme, and it is particularly necessary when a problem as- sumes the proportions of the present one and when time is so limited. This necessity brought about the conception and erec- tion on the site of a Technology "Service Building" large enough to house both the architectural and the engineering forces. This Service Building is approxi- mately I20 feet by 75 feet, and contains offices for the repre- sentatives of the architect and of the engineering corporation, together with a huge drafting- room, lighted on the north by an immense skylight, running the entire length of the building, ac- commodating one hundred men. There are also filing-rooms and stenographers' rooms, toilets, etc. A fireproof vault opens from the drafting-room, in which all valuable drawings are placed over night, as a conflagration would mean the loss of thou- sands of dollars. There is a blue- printing room, equipped with a powerful machine, running wa- ter, and a forced draught, so that a print can be washed and dried within eight minutes. A type printing-press is also provided, and se\'eral adding-machines are placed in different parts of the room to assist in rapid computa- tions. The building is efficienth' Fig. 5. View of Left Hand — Lastern Face — of Courtyard, May 11, 1915 THE ARCHITLCTURAL REVIEW 87 heated, and is, indeed, in every sense of the word, a "Service Building." On the site, besides the Service Building, a Con- struction Office has been located, which houses the Superintend- ent of Construction and his Con- struction Staff. They have the direct oversight of all outside construction. Although the new Technology is housed under one roof, yet the plans allow for a logical division of the buildings into different groups. The general plan is thus divided into twenty- one different sections, and each section is treated as a separate building in the preparation of floor plans and in carrying out operations on the site. The buildings are always referred to by their building numbers, shown on the plot plan in Plate lxvi. The twenty-one buildings have been divided into seven groups of three buildings each, and a foreman has charge of each group, and is directly responsible to a master foreman. Each foreman has a small office, located in close proximity to the group under his particular supervision, and these offices connect by tele- phone with the superintendent's office. In this way operations have been carried on simul- taneously over the entire site. One thousand men were at one time engaged in excavating, fill- ing, and driving piles. There are four railroad tracks, totaling a mile and a half of length, which traverse the site. A switching locomotive is operated exclu- sively for hauHng immense amounts of building-materials to different portions of the grounds. Fifty-three thousand yards of fill were distributed over the area of the courtyard in order to raise the grade five feet above the River Esplanade, and in ad- dition some thirty-five thousand yards were deposited over the remainder of the lot. One thou- sand tons of steel have been used on the ground. A few sta- iwsiiiBHsiNfsfs'iiiiiiiB! ra SI 1 f SJ IE EBIIIIITir'T ■iliffiiTinnTiBiini ■' "" Fig. 6. View of Right — Western Face — of Courtyard, Nov. 12, 1914 Fig. 7. Detail of Right Portion of River Front of Building, March 12, 1915 Fig. 8. Detail of Western Courtyard Face, seen from Central Building, Sept. 10, 1915 tistics, giving the large quantities of materials used in the build- ings, may also be of interest as indicating the magnitude of the work accomplished. Since the beginning, and during working hours, material of different kinds has been de- livered to the job at the rate of one ton per minute. Forty thou- sand cubic yards of concrete have gone into footings and framework, and one miUion, six- hundred thousand square feet of wood forms have been neces- sary to receive the concrete. Thirty-five hundred tons of re- inforcing steel have been re- quired for the concrete, and twenty-two thousand piles have been driven — which approxi- mate five hundred and seventy- five thousand hnear feet. Two hundred and fifty thousand cubic feet of Umestone have been used for exterior facing, to- gether with six hundred thou- sand face brick in the interior courtyards. The common bricks used for backing up the exterior walls aggregate over three mil- lion. One hundred thousand square feet of metal window frames and sash have been in- stalled, and five hundred thou- sand square feet of interior par- titions erected. The procedure by which the working drawings have been produced may be of interest. The questions of pure architec- tural design were studied and decided upon in Mr. Bosworth's office in New York, and the treatment of the exterior fagades, as well as the general layout of plan, were there determined during the seven months pre- ceding the erection of the Serv- ice Building. It is therefore the working and detail drawings which have been prepared in Cambridge. After innumerable consulta- tions with the professors in charge of the various depart- ments of instruction at the In- stitute, floor plans were finally Fig. 9. Last Side of [buildings, showing Deplh of Structure, taken from Site of Walker Memorial 88 THE ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW evolved that satisfied their di- verse requirements. In this work the Technology Faculty have been most unselfish of their time, and have shown a rare spirit of loyalty and cooperation. These plans, by buildings, were care- fully drawn by the architectural division in the Service Building, indicating the position of the various laboratories, class and lecture rooms, ofiices, etc. At the same time elevations, sec- tions, and details of the archi- tectural treatment were pre- pared to accompany the plans. Blue-prints were then issued to the structural engineers, who designed the framing. They were enabled to do this by fig- uring out floor loads for the vari- ous portions of the buildings, based on data obtained by the equipment engineers. This in- formation related the weight, size, and kind of machinery, as well as its location, and included everything making up the equip- ment of the Institute's great workrooms. The structural en- gineers thus determined the sizes of columns and beams, and prepared piUng and footing plans, which were sent out on the field. At the same time, the heating and ventilating engi- neers were figuring where their fresh air intakes, ducts, steam- pipes, and drains could best be located. The electrical engineers were likewise at work, preparing a scheme for artificially Kghting the rooms in all these buildings. These structural, heating, ven- tilating, and electrical plans were then referred back to the architect, for his criticism and approval, and were thus made to harmonize with the desired architectural result. They were then incorporated in the archi- tect's final plans, and formed the basis for the working drawings. Besides these plans and elevations, large scale details were prepared showing the jointing of the stone facings for the differ- ent elevations, and the contours of cornices and other horizontal mouldings, in order that stone esti- mates could be procured. Full-size models of various portions of the facades were prepared, and erected in place on the site, in order to study the projec- tions of cornice mouldings and pilaster projections, as well as the proportion of window openings. By adopting reinforced MS' ' Detail of Cornice (Building 7), showing Section of Mouldings and Scale of Detail View of fLntrance Portico Colonnade, taken May 31, 1916 Inner Portico and Main Building facing on Courtyard, May 31, 1916 concrete construction it has been possible to carry out the erec- tion of the skeleton framework as one complete operation, thus allowing the masonry to proceed at the base of the buildings be- fore the upper floors were stripped of their concrete forms. As the masonry work rose it gave an opportunity to install the steel window-frames. In this way one operation followed closely on the heels of the pre- ceding ones, and thus a great deal of time was saved. Weekly conferences were held in the Service Building, at which all the engineers of the various branches of the work met with the architect's representative, discussed the various problems constantly' arising, and arrived at decisions which could be reached only by this form of mutual cooperation. All drawings issued by both the architect and engineers were sent to the blue-print room, with an order-card calling for a rou- tine number of blue-prints, which were sent out automatically, ac- cording to a prearranged sched- ule, to the contractors, the gen- eral superintendent, the con- sulting engineers, and all others vitally connected with the work. The dimensions and other in- formation on all drawings were systematically checked by both the architect's forces and by the engineers, any inaccuracies being quickly corrected by immediate consultation. The architect has maintained an inspector con- stantly on the job, and as the construction proceeded all mi- nor readjustments were quickly made through the medium of the telephones distributed over the buildings and connected with the foremen's and superintend- ent's offices and with the Service Building. All decisions and gen- eral information not in- cluded on the working drawings have been trans- mitted in written form on standard memorandum sheets, copies of which were distributed to the drafting- rooms, the superintendent, and the construction man- ager, and filed for reference. After the bids on the dif- ferent materials entering into the buildings had been received, they were gone over by the representatives of both the architect and the engineering corporation before any of the sub-con- tracts were awarded. THL ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW 89 The Construction of the Dome Illustrated by Construction Photographs PRINCIPAL among the interesting features of construction of the new buildings for the Massa- chusetts Institute of Tech- nology is the great dome, which rises above the central building, and is at the same time its crowning architec- tural feature and the most interesting instance of rein- forced concrete framing to be found in the entire group. The dome structure and the five-story building on which it rests are faced with Bedford Limestone, in harmony with the other buildings. The sup- porting structure, built en- tirely of reinforced concrete, and following the lines of the architectural design, is in the form of two tiers of cyHnders or drums, the upper drum surmounted by the dome proper. The lower half of the dome is formed with steps, and the upper half is a trun- cated sphere, with a skylight in the flat top to admit light to the library reading-room below. The drums are supported on two circumferential rows of columns, the outside row of the lowest drum resting on a ring girder which in turn rests upon the beams of the fifth floor of the main building. The outside row of the upper drum also rests on a ring girder, which spans the radial beams connecting the outer and irmer columns of the lower drum. The inner col- umns of both drums, eight in number, are continuous with the columns of the main building below. Ring girders support both the upper and lower planes of the spherical portion of the dome. The stepped portion of the dome is formed in reinforced concrete slabs, resting on radial inclined girders spanning the outer and inner columns of the upper drum. The slab va- ries in thickness from five inches at the top to eight inches at the bottom. The reinforcement is in the form of cross-webbing of twisted rods. The top of the dome is one hundred forty-seven The Dome (Building 17), looking Last from Massachusetts Ave., Sept. 10, 1915 ---r-r,,i>^ Looking down along West Courtyard Wing, from the Dome, Aug. 12, 19 Casting the Auditorium under the Dome, as the Walls Went Up, April 9, 1915 and one half feet above the general level of the site and sixty-five feet above the para- pets of the adjoining build- ings. The lower drum is one hundred and twenty feet in diameter and the upper drum one hundred and eight feet in diameter. The curved, or spherical, section of the dome is seventy feet in diameter. The structure supporting the dome is remarkable in that it, inside, suggests in no way the large circle of the dome above, but is utilized for various important pur- poses, including an entrance- hall; a crane runway, one bay wide, in the basement and first story, extending the full width of the building; a lec- ture-room in the second and third stories, which will seat five hundred and fifty people, and has only two free stand- ing columns exposed; and, on the fifth floor, the great cir- cular library, directly beneath the dome, with a reading- room seventy feet in diameter and seventy feet high, and stack space for three hundred and fifty thousand volumes. In the Pratt School of Naval Architecture (Building No. 19 on the plot plan), to be lo- cated on Massachusetts Ave- nue immediately beyond the point at which the facade ex- tending along that street now stops, and which will probably be the first of the future addi- tions to the main buildings to be erected, a larger audito- rium, seating two thousand people, will be provided. The portion of the main study buildings now built provides facilities for two thousand students, and the space contemplated in the plans for future additions will more than double that capacity. The present scheme pro- vides internal partitions of an easily removable nature, so that class-rooms or labo- ratories can be enlarged or made smaller, as necessity demands. The big central library and the administra- tive ofiices, under the dome, are centrally located for both present and future development. < ttJ > uJ -J < U (- x; U < . ir— ! rfHi' » ,fr = > n- 1 ,'• ,1' { '■ t' < uJ z uJ O 1'^ . i 1 I 1 n ■ ii , n I I/) < uJ o Q < o -J o z r U ^ LiJ 'J Cl uJ < c=: - K r, := ^, "0 r < < 3: a: n Q uJ > .-1 3 a. uJ > < Cd. U uJ H u < z o > z < uJ O Q oi ca < u >-* o o o z i: U uJ ^: o 5 i ^ ^ z Q [/) CQ uJ U < < O 1/1 O uJ I- < z O > -mm VOL. IV.. NO. 6 THL ARCHITLCTURAL RLVILW PLATE. 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IV., NO. 6 PLATL LXVI LiBRAPo, nnii-nooR plan Ffpr,nlHceil III a -.cnh of lliirly-tK'n fi li In Ihe inch .SLCOND-TILR STACK PLAN ■■//. 4/ -— -— '" , --1 __^ — ' - DETAIL OF ENTRANCE PORTICO NEW BUILDINGS FOR THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. WM. WELLES B05W0RTH, ARCHITECT VOL. IV., NO. 6 THE ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW PLATL LXIX DE.TAIL Ol CORNER PAVILION, MIO\\IN(, lAC.SDL IO\vARD MINOR COURT NEW BUILDINGS FOR THE. MA55ACHU5I1IT5 INSTITUTL OF TECHNOLOGY, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. WM. WLLLLS B05W0RTH, ARCHIILCT VOL IV., NO. 6 Tt!L ARCHITECTURAL REVILW PLATL LXX "■ P^ ,j'»fc• ^•■i 'wy- ■;,ii^f^SSg5«a3ri..': ■^fjWggpl^^ -I View of Ri\er Front t r*' i/C>! i i ?^ii'n::> ^ b ii M .1, ' . ; |M9 ^?i ,4 jsh? >i flAMi!>^%*t '.^^:f^ic^^' -'»-,-^'irgS!^'»»»»S««r«r'. il^Sfi*^*, ^yf'^-^t^^'i- • '*«:» Jt , vJ""! .'i' vw^ '' -".ill ^3 Garden Side, Studies for President's House Wm. Welles Bosworth. Architect ' wi.' X*' >