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Eugeniu Iordachescu, a Romanian civil engineer who helped save some of Bucharest’s most emblematic churches from destruction in the 1980s by literally rolling them to safety, died on Jan. 4 at his home in Bucharest. He was 89.
[...] In the 1980s, Mr. Iordachescu was working at the Project Institute of Bucharest, a design and engineering center. Around that time Romania’s dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, set about radically redesigning the center of the city, inspired by the architecture and the style of city planning he had seen on a visit to Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea.
[...] Mr. Iordachescu came up with the idea of digging under the buildings and putting a reinforced concrete support beneath them; the structures could then be placed on tracks. After that, engineers would sever the foundations and use hydraulic levers and mechanical pulleys to move the buildings to their new locations. Foundations would be put in place at the other end to support the relocated structures.
When he had first raised the idea with colleagues, Mr. Iordachescu was told that it wasn’t possible, that the buildings would fall over. He persuaded some engineers to try, and received verbal permission from government officials — though no one was willing to give permission in writing, in case the experiment failed.
“I find what they did extraordinary,” Viorel Speteanu, the editor of the book “Eugeniu Iordachescu: A Savior of Architectural Monuments,” said in an interview. “The ideas flew around. The movements of these buildings, both churches and civil buildings, I think this is an extraordinary achievement, and I will never stop praising him for his accomplishment.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/11/obituaries/eugeniu-iordachescu-dead.html
(Score: 1, Redundant) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday January 15 2019, @11:07AM
I was very honored that he came to the White House. He's doing the 2% for NATO. Something so many wouldn't do. But, too bad what happened to the Ceausescus (RIP!!). Murdered, so tragically. They brought their country very far. And they're greatly missed.
Buildings, I know more than anybody about buildings. And so many times the best, and cheapest thing is to tear them down. Trump Tower, as everyone knows, one of my most beloved buildings in New York City. Trump Tower has always been very special to me. Before purchasing the site in 1979, I would pace up and down Fifth Avenue, looking at the eleven-story building that housed Bonwit Teller at the time, hoping for a day when it would be available for purchase. I knocked down that third rate department store in nothing flat. And put in the most magnificent building in New York. When opened in 1984, Trump Tower was the first super-luxury condominium building and most exclusive shopping destination in Manhattan. Since that time, Trump Tower has become much more to me than just another great deal. It holds a sentimental, personal value to me. I live in it, raised my family in it and work in it.