New York Important Architectural Numbers

From 1909 to 1913 the Met Life Tower (1883-1909) by Napoleon, LeBrun & Sons, in Madison Square is the tallest building in the world, with 51 floors, overtaken by the Woolworth building.
The Municipal Building, was finished in 1914 by William K Kendall and KcKim, Mead & White with 40 floors and 33 elevators cost $9.000.000.
The Christler Building, 319 meters, by William Van Alen opened in 1931, eleven months before than the Empire State Building, by Shrere, Lamb & Haron, with 102 floors, 443 meters.
In 1931 other important new building was 20 Exchange Place, The Farmers Bank, by Cross & Cross with 59 floors.
The Freedom Tower or One Trade Center (2006-2014), is the tallest skyscraper in the Western Hemisphere and the fourth tallest in the world. It has been the tallest in NYC since April 30, 2012, when it surpassed the height of the Empire State Building. Its spire makes the building to reach a symbolic height of 1,776 feet (541 m), the year of the US Declaration of Independence.

Woolworth Building and Freedom Tower from the Municipal Building, photo by Berta de Miguel

Municipal Building from One Financial Square, photo by Berta de Miguel

 

 

Empire State from the Christler Building, photo by Berta de Miguel

Jumbo and the Brooklyn Bridge

Jumbo was an African Bush elephant born in Sudan in 1860. Being a baby, he was sold to the Italian dealer Lorenzo Casanova, who carried him to Europe and sold it to Gottlieb Kreutzberg, who, after a short period of time sold him to the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. Still small, he was overshadowed by a couple of elephants bigger and nicer than him. Another top zoo in Europe, London Garden, was looking desperately for an African Elephant. Finally, they acquired the Elephant (still nameless) in exchange for a rhinoceros, two dingoes, a jackal, a possum, a kangaroo and a pair of eagles; ill and in poor condition, he is shipped to England on June 26, 1865. 

Matthew Scott, Scotty, becomes his new nurse, trainer and the friend who will be at his side till the very end. He was the one who names the elephant Jumbo. Time passes and Jumbo grows more and more. And more: 12 feet in height, 14 feet in length and seven tones. And he becomes more and more famous. Thanks to his friendly character, he begins giving rides to children; among those children were a young Winston Churchill and the Prince of Wales. He was the most important attraction of the zoo, reason why a new house was build for him and an elephant girl, Alice, was chosen to live with him in their new elephant house with bath pool. From that moment he won´t need to walk to the Themes to have regular baths. 

In 1881, the probably most important circus magnate P.T. Barnum, wanted the by far largest known elephant in the world: Jumbo. The zoo, aware of the fact that Jumbo was approaching his ‘musth’ period, sold him for 20.000 £. The whole process was held under a quite dark negotiation, and the zoo tried to revoke the sale after furious pressures by the population trying not to lose their beloved animal (The Elephant War, 1960, by Gillian Avery is a historical novel featuring the protest movement based in Oxford). 

But Barnum wasn´t a magnate for having a big hearth so on March 24, 1883, Jumbo and Scotty depart towards America, where they arrive on April 9 and debut in Madison Square Garden, New York the next day. After 31 weeks of circus tour, Barnum won $1.75 million thanks to the new attraction, Jumbo.

Brooklyn bridge was completed in 1883, but many people was skeptical about it stability. In May 1884, Jumbo was one of the 21 elephants of P.T. Barnum that crossed the Brooklyn Bridge in order to prove that the bridge was safe.
His theory was that if the bridge could easily hold Jumbo and his pals, the bridge could easily hold as many pedestrians as New York could throw at it. Barnum originally offered Jumbo to open the bridge the previous year and was turned down.

In September 15, 1883 Jumbo dies stuck by a train when he was entering his train. Many metallic objects were found in the elephant's stomach, including pennies, keys, rivets, and a police whistle. His skeleton was shipped to the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The elephant's heart was sold to Cornell University; his hide went to Tufts University in Massachusetts, where a fire in 1975 will destroy it. The elephant's ashes are kept in a 14-ounce Peter Pan Crunchy Peanut Butter jar in the office of the Tufts athletic director, while his taxidermied tail, removed during earlier renovations, resides in the holdings of the Tufts Digital Collections and Archives.

Dumbo is a 1941 American animated film produced by Walt Disney inspirited in Jumbo.

The Pentagon has double toilet facilities that is needed for a builidng its size

The Pentagon, located in Arlington (Virginia), is the headquarter of the United States Department of Defense.

When World War II broke out in Europe, the headquarters of the United States Department of War was spread out in different temporary buildings such as the Greggory Building, the National Mall. The situation was unacceptable for secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, and that is what he told President Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was decided to build a new building from scratch; it had to be no more than four stories tall with a minimal amount of steel, which implied the building would be sprawling over a large area. Steel was in short supply during WWII. The originally chosen site had a roughly pentagonal shape, and that is how it was designed.  But president Roosevelt suddenly got concerned that the new building could obstruct the view of Washington D.C. from Arlington Cemetery. Finally, the obsolete Hoover Airport location was selected. But, after changing the site, the design was maintained because a major change would have been very expensive. Nevertheless, it was modified to a perfect shaped pentagon. Part of the attached neighborhood, Hell’s Bottom, was bought for completing the space needed, including some pawnshops, some factories and 150 houses making 280 acres (1.1 km2).

Works begun on September 11, 1941. The reinforced concrete structure was covered with Indiana limestone facades.  680,000 tons sand from the Potomac River were used for the construction. The necessity of having the headquarters finished rush the process to an unbelievable speed, rushed even more, after Pearl Harbor attack (December 7 1941)

The Pentagon has double the standard toilet facilities due to the state of Virginia’s racial laws at the time of it construction. On each floor there were double toilet facilities separated by gender and race. However, president Roosvelt ordered to remove the “Whites Only” signs before the building was used and during a long period of time, it was the only building in Virginia were segregation was not allowed. 

The building was completed by January 15, 1943. It was the largest building in the country, housing more than 17 miles of corridors. Normally, it would have taken years, but it was designed and executed in just 16 months. 

Aerial view of the two first sides

MEGHLAYA BRIDGES

Meghalaya is a state in the north east of India. It is a heavily forested region very rainy. It is said to be the wettest place in the world, with an average annual rainfall as high as 1200cc in some areas; the town of Cherrapunji holds the world record for most rain in a calendar month. This means that during the raining season, those streams that are spread out through all the area, become indomitable torrents that destroy everything in their way, including bridges. That is why the inhabitants developed, centuries ago, an amazing way to create bridges that would withstand the flows: Natural living bridges made with directional roots.

If you want to see with your own eyes how they work, I strongly recommend the following video, extracted from a chapter, dedicated to the rivers, of Human Planet, an awesome BBC documentary. Absolutely all the chapters of Human Planet are amazing; I really encourage you to see them.  

 

DARUMA-OTOSHI, a New Demolition Method recognized as an "Innovation Award Finalist" in the 2012 CTBUH Awards Program.

DARUMA-OTOSHI, a New Demolition Method recognized as an "Innovation Award Finalist" in the 2012 CTBUH Awards Program.

Demolishing tall buildings in the middle of a city is becoming an everyday occurrence in big cities such as Tokyo, where the lack of space forces city planners to reinvent the urban core. It is becoming an issue impact on the environment and re-use of materials.  Kajima Corporation has developed a method that addresses and improves over traditional demolition methods. Deconstruction versus demolition. The “Cut and Take Down Method” consists on: “temporary columns are used around the structural column grid, the existing columns are replaced, and then hydraulic jacks are placed where the existing columns were and the building can be lowered to the next floor plate where the process is repeated”

"Daryna-Otoshi" is an old Japanese game that consists in taking the bottom pieces of a toy without dissasembling it. 

“There are so many quiet revolutions going on in tall buildings. Top-down construction is one such revolution, and here is another—bottom-up demolition.”
- Antony Wood, 2012 Awards Juror, CTBUH

These two videos clearly show how this amazing method works:

Sitio Arqueológico de Guayabo de Turrialba, Costa Rica

Tomb

Guayabo de Turrialba is the most important archeological site in Costa Rica. Flanked to the south by the Turrialba Volcano, the Guayabo Nacional Monumento (1973) is one of those places to visit. Monument’s tropical ambience, atmosphere and mysterious origins make for an amazing if not fascinating experience. The only archaeological park in the country, Guayabo protects the remains of a city that flourished and mysteriously disappeared before the arrival of the Spaniards. Archaeologists deduced that the pre-Columbian city was led by a chief, who exercised political and religious power over a large region. On 2009, it was declared an International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers when it became a milestone in the engineering world for its water supply and drainage systems, designed to prevent flooding or overflow; after seven centuries of being abandoned are still working.  

General view of the site

The monolith of the jaguar and the lizard,
whose meaning is still not deciphered.

Archaeologists are still unclear why this Indian settlement, inhabited by the Cabécar as early as 1000 BC, was abandoned around 1400 AD. Archaeologists believe that this city was a key religious, political and cultural center. The Guayabo National Monument sits on only 10% of its total land area, while the remainder 90% of the land is a premontane rainforest; this 232-hectare monument was first uncovered in 1968 by Carlos Aguilar Piedra, an archeologist at the University of Costa Rica.  In the central area of the monument are different mounds with stone foundations, which generally have a circular base of different sizes. It is believed that the houses were build on the mounts with wood and straw, and their high was the diameter of the circular base (up to 30 meters). Excavations have also revealed cobbled roads, a sophisticated city infrastructure, covered and uncovered aqueducts, mysterious petroglyphs, tombs and sculptures, which suggest a highly developed knowledge of civil engineering. Their construction techniques are influenced by both South American and Mesoamerican cultures. Since the American Indians did not use the wheel, many of their streets are equipped with stairs. 

Covered aqueduct

 
Who built this lost city? Why did its inhabitants disappear just before the Spanish landed? The most accepted hypothesis mentioned diseases, internal conflicts, maybe even war. 

 

Infrared technology applied to archeology:

WB-57 was the plane used to taking infrared photographies.

On March 2003 the Costa Rica´s government and the NASA developed a project called CARTA (Airbone Research And Technology Applications), which objective was, among others, to take infrared images of the country.  Once the photographs were taken, the University of Costa Rica, represented by   Dr. Javier Bonatti González and Licda. Maureen Sánchez Pereira, did a research in order to discover Pre-Columbian roads called “Determinación de posibles rutas de intercambio precolombinas en la región central de Costa Rica usando sensores remotos avanzados” (Determination of possible exchange Pre-Columbine  roads in central Costa Rica using  advanced remote sensing). 

The results of the research reveal that there were several roads between different human centers all around the country, and the fact that some of those crossed big rivers suggest the existence of bridges. The roads were approximately three meters wide and were constructed to go by feet. 

Following are some texts related to this subject, quoted literally: 

Infrared picture that shows the Pre-Columbine roads/paths

 The area of Costa Rica has been scanned with various sensors (high resolution visible camera, infra-red camera, MASTER - thermal emission and reflection radiometer etc.) in order to acquire airborne multispectral digital imagery and photographic data for the ecosystem and agricultural research, for urban and land use planning, for studying volcanic activity and hazards, for cartographic purposes and for archeological studies.

Sensors used in multispectral digital photographic imagery: (Main source: NASA Flight Summary Report)

1.        Leica RC-30 metric camera is used for natural color imagery with wavelength range 420-700nm mainly for surface mapping and monitoring. Precision photogrammetry and films may be used to generate digital elevation models.

2.        Cirrus Digital Camera System (DCS) is used for acquiring flase color infrared imagery with 510-990nm spectral range. Primary use is in habitat mapping and ecosystem monitoring.

3.        MODIS/ASTER (MASTER) is the airborne simulator of the NASA satellite instrument, orbiting on NASA's Terra satellite (ASTER - Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer and MODIS - geographic reprojection tool). It is intended primarily to study geological and other Earth surface properties. Fifty spectral bands cover 435nm - 13,110nm (13.11µm).

4.        HyMap Hyperspectral Scanner provides 126 bands across the reflective solar wavelength region of 0.45 - 2.5nm with contiguous spectral coverage (except in the atmospheric water vapor bands) and bandwidths between 15 - 20nm. High spatial and spectral resolution is used for example to differentiate a wide range of minerals at the ground surface through their characteristic absorption spectra.

 

An example of Hyperspectral imagery. ASTER/MODIS Airborne Simulator from CARTA-2 2005, flight #05-003-31, Track #8. Images were taken at wavelength (from left) of 0.66µm, 1.50µm, 3.74µm, 11.31µm and RGB.

 (From http://isda.ncsa.uiuc.edu/drupal/content/costa-rica-2050 )

Color Infrared Film (CIR):
Detects longer wavelengths somewhat beyond the red end of the light spectrum. CIR film was initially employed during World War II to differentiate objects that had been artificially camouflaged. Infrared photography has the same problems that conventional photography has, you need light and clear skies. Even so, CIR is sensitive to very slight differences in vegetation. Because buried archeological features can affect how plants grow above them, such features become visible in color infrared photography.

(From http://wwwghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/archeology/remote_sensing.html )

Sources

http://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2011/05/guayabo-monument-in-costa-rica.html

http://bocachica.arc.nasa.gov/CARTA_2005/index.html

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historia_precolombina_de_Costa_Rica

http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/DC-8/HTML/ED04-0056-059.html

http://www.ghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/archeology/remote_sensing.html

http://isda.ncsa.uiuc.edu/drupal/content/costa-rica-2050

http://www.vinv.ucr.ac.cr/girasol-ediciones/archivo/girasol25/mirada.htm

Acuña Coto, Victor, Relaciones entre asentamientos precolombinos al norte de Guayabo de Turrialba en la Fase Cabaña. Revista de Ciencias Sociales. Universidad de Costa Rica, 35: 43-52, 1987.

Aguilar Piedra, Carlos H. Guayabo de Turrialba; arqueología de un sitio indígena prehispánico. Editorial Costa Rica. San José, 1972.

Drolet, Robert, Arqueología e ingeniería hidráulica en Guayabo de Turrialba. In Primer Seminario de Ingeniería de los Recursos Hidrálicos, Colegio de Ingenieros Civiles de Costa Rica, pp. 339- 349, 1984.

Lines, Jorge A., Bibliografia antropológica aborigen de Costa Rica San Jose, Costa Rica, 1943.