| Title | Influential Architect I. M. Pei Dies at 102 | |
| Date | Saturday May 18 2019, @07:29PM | |
| Author | martyb | |
| Topic | ||
| from the it-will-work-because-I-said-so dept. | ||
Major outlets report on the passing of I. M. Pei, known for spectacular buildings around the world, The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/may/17/im-pei-architect-audacious-daredevil-who-built-the-impossible mentions some of his better known successes like the pyramid Louvre extension in Paris and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Old gray lady is similar, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/16/arts/design/im-pei-buildings.html
Since I was in college in Boston in the 1970s, I'm more inclined to comment on his ego, which let him (and his firm) ignore their engineers and build the Hancock tower in downtown Copley Square. The first time the wind came up, large glass panes fell to the plaza below. For several years it was the "plywood tower" until multiple engineering fixes were applied. This Wiki article describes some of the work required: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hancock_Tower#Engineering_flaws Pieces of fallen glass were kept as souvenirs by many Bostonians.
I believe that Pei's engineers knew in advance that the vertical "blade" shape of the tower was close enough to an airfoil shape that it was going to have large twisting forces in the wind, but the architect convinced the customer (John Hancock Insurance) to go ahead without a full study in advance. Some of your submitting AC's back story came from a detailed personal conversation with the lead engineer for the retro-fitted dynamic dampers added at the top of the building--just one part of the repair process. He recalled carrying lead bricks up the elevators (on low wind days) to fill the two 300 ton weight boxes of the damping mechanism.
This building is rumored to have gone well over double the original budget.
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printed from SoylentNews, Influential Architect I. M. Pei Dies at 102 on 2024-04-25 11:26:28