Millau Viaduct

      This is the Millau Viaduct located in River Tarn Valley, Millau, France. Construction on it started in 2001 and finished in 2004. It's purpose was to reduce the amount of backed up traffic on Route A75 when everybody went to the Mediterranean coast during the holidays. The Viaduct completely eliminated the problem; tourist's were able to zoom right along without much back up at all. What's more, the declining town of Millau had an unprecedented growth spurt, with lots of companies setting up in and around Millau and the Viaduct. So, it turns out that the $600 million U.S. dollars it cost to build it turned out to be worth it.


The Millau Viaduct was constructed by Foster and Partners, along with Michel Virlogeux. The style of the Viaduct is "High Tech". High Tech is a style which is used a lot today. Click these links for other buildings I have written about that are examples of High Tech:

• John Hancock Center
• Torre Agbar
• Lloyd's Building
• HSBC Headquarters

     The cable stayed Viaduct itself is about 1.5 miles long, and is constructed of 7 obvious pylons that allow the road to run at an average height of 886 ft. above the ground. In the middle of the valley which it runs through, the highest pylon stands at 1,125 ft. tall. As is shown in the picture below, that is taller than the Eiffel Tower!

    

Overall, the bridge is simple and beautiful. One detail is that helps constitute that look is the fact that there are 11 cables on either side of each pylon. This is much more aesthetically pleasing than an even number. In nature, all flowers have an odd number of petals etc. Regardless of it's beauty, the Viaduct has set a number of structural records. Here are some of them:

• 2006 International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering "Outstanding Structure Award"
• The highest bridge pylon in the world
• The highest bridge pylon in Europe

Thus, the Millau Viaduct was quite a success, despite many arguments for other options, included one that cost one third the amount. Even though there is a toll charged for crossing the bridge, it remains a very popular tourist destination with 10,000-25,000 cars daily! Rightly, it has been hailed as one of the greatest engineering achievements of all time. 

Empire State Building

The Empire State Building was completed in 1931 after less than 2 years of construction. The reason why it was completed so fast was that the Empire State Building was built at the era of "The Skyscraper Race". At the time it was racing with the older Trump Building, and the Walter Chrysler Building. The Trump Building was finished first, breaking the world record, then the Walter Chrysler Building was finished breaking the world record again. Finally, the Empire State Building was finished, once again breaking the world record for the tallest building. It was constructed at almost 4 stories a week, to a competed height of 102 stories. 

The official height of the building was 1,454 ft. tall. It held this title for 36 years. The designs for the building were drawn in only two weeks. About 4,000 workers were used to complete the building, especially emigrants. The project as a whole was completed ahead of schedule(15 months, not 18), and under budget(24 million instead of 41 million). Despite all this, the tower was practically empty until 1950, 29 years later. This gave it the nickname: "The Empty State Building". It was sold in 1951 for 51 million dollars, at the time, the biggest real estate price paid for a single building. The building proved it's strength when a B-25 bomber flew into it in the fog at the80th floor in 1945. The plane started a fire and caused large damage, but the fire was put out in 40 minutes, and the building was fixed and strengthened. 

The Empire State Building was built at a time when dirigible air travel was the rage. The peak of the skyscraper was designed as a docking station for airships; but the transition of people from airship to skyscraper was later considered to risky after an attempt. 

The tower has 2 observation decks, one on the 86th floor, and the other on the 102nd floor. The owners of the Empire State Building receive more money from the tickets for the observation levels than they get from renting out their 2,768,591 square ft. of office space.

The Empire State Building was voted the America's #1 favorite architecture by the AIA in 2007.

Lloyd's Building

This is Lloyd's Building, located in London, England. Lloyd is one of the country's main financial institutions. Lloyd hired Richard Rogers to build their new headquarters in the late 1970's.The building was completed in 1986. The building has changed hands multiple times.

It is often called the "Inside-Out Building" because the stairways, elevators, toilets, and service towers are positioned outside the facade. Lloyd's Building is clearly influenced by a previous building Rogers had co-designed (with Renzo Piano). The Centre Georges Pompidou; or in English "The Pompidou Center". Here is a picture of it:

Lloyd's Building looks more futuristic with it's aluminum cladding. 

Lloyd's Building is 95 meters tall at antenna height, and has 14 floors. Since all the immovable things are on the outside, the inner floors are flexible, with walls and partitions that can be moved around for different purposes. The building is composed of three main towers and three service towers grouped around a 200 ft.  atrium. The main part of the atrium is the Underwriting Room: a large area overlooked by the galleries of different levels. The levels are connected by escalators as can be seen in the picture below:

Though the building is called modern, it has it's old side. There is a 18th century dining room located on the 11th floor that was transferred from the old building piece by piece. Here is a picture of another old, beautiful room:

Then there is also the Lutine Bell, a bell that is rung every time a ship is lost at sea. 

That is a diverse building, grouped in with other building such as the Swiss Re Tower, which I have posted on.

Seagram Building

This is the Seagram Building. It was designed by the famous architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in collaboration with Philip Johnson. It is the true Modernistic skyscraper. It is a simple, non-decorative skyscraper. Some people would call it a minimalist skyscraper. 

It is 516 ft. with 38 stories. It was completed in 1958. When Ludwig designed the building he wanted to show the structure on the outside of the building. In the original plan he wanted the steel frame forming a major part of the facade. But code dictated that the steel be covered by a fire resistant material. So he covered it with concrete, and then covered the concreted with non-load bearing bronze colored I-beams. 

When built, this skyscraper was at the time the most expensive skyscraper to build mostly because of the exquisite interior. He made the facade seem more regular by designing window shades that could only be drawn to three positions: up, down, and in the middle. This made the building stand apart from other skyscrapers whose shades are at all different positions and makes the windows seem irregular.

While the skyscraper is tall, it is not as imposing as other towers of the day. That is because the tower is set back from the sidewalk, forming a public plaza that integrates the sidewalk that is quite popular to this day. 

The is the epitome of Internationalist skyscrapers.

Lotus Temple

This is the Baha'i House of Worship; better known as the Lotus Temple. It is located in Delhi, India. In a general sense, the Baha'i faith could be called a "unitarian" belief. It welcomes anybody  to worship under it's roof without restrictions of race or religion. No sermons are preached, no musical instruments are played inside, and there are no pulpits, altars, images, statues, or icons. 

   The temple itself was built to represent unity; it was designed with 27 leaves or petals in groups of three and nine entrances facing outwards. Why? Because the Baha'i scripture dictates nine sided geometry. Inside, the building is a single, huge hall 40 meters tall that can hold 2,500 people. The temple is surrounded by nine huge pools and 26 acres of gardens.

On Hindu Holy days, it may receive as many as 150,000 visitors. Between the time it was built in 1986 and 2002, it has received over 50,000,000 visitors, making it more popular that the Eiffel Tower and the Taj Mahal! That breaks down to 4,000,000 visitors every year, 13,000 a day, and 9 every minute! 

This is an astounding building!

Torre Agbar

This is Torre Agbar, located in Barcelona, Spain, in which it is the third tallest building at 474 ft. tall. It was designed by Jean Nouvel. When completed in 2004, it was classified as an example of "high-tech architecture". Torre Agbar is occupied as an office building. The facade of the building is made up of windows with with different tints, and sheets of aluminum which is also different colors:

As can be seen in the picture below, there are sun shades which are automatically opened and closed, depending on the orientation of the sun. (The man in the picture is Alain Robert, a famous urban climber.)

Jean Nouvel says the building is inspired by a mountain near Barcelona called Montserrat, and also by the the shape of a geyser. In the daytime, it is has a look quite similar in shape to the Swiss Re Tower:
http://chris-skyline.blogspot.com/search/label/Swiss%20Re%20Building

But it is remembered by most people for it's night display. Incorporated in the the facade are 4,500 LED lights which create a gorgeous display. The LED's can operate independently, and switch colors in the blink of the eye, thus creating innumerable possible patterns. Over 15,000,000 colors can be created!

This is certainly a unique building, and one I have wanted to post on for a while.

Esplanade - Theaters on the Bay

This is an aireal view of the building, which has two connected parts.

This building is located in Singapore and was completed in 2002. One half of the building is a concert hall, and the other half is a theater. The complex also includes an outside complex. It also holds Singapore's first arts library on the third floor. 

It cost 600 million Singapore dollars to build, but was well worth the investment. It has a huge variety of programs, displays, concerts, etc. The theater holds 2000 people in four levels, but all the seats are within 130 ft. of the stage! The concert hall holds 1,600 people. The concert hall is one of only six other concert halls in the world with the state-of-the-art acoustics that are integrated in the concert hall.

When the design of the building was revealed to the public, it had no sunshades, just a glass facade. People did not like this idea, and when the building was built, it incorporated the sunshades that are so distinctive:

Most people said that with the sunshades, the buildings looked like "durians"; a fruit native to Singapore. Here is a picture of one:

There is quite a good resemblance. 

This building has become one of the most popular buildings in Singapore.

Frank O. Gehry Series

I am finished with the buildings by Frank O. Gehry. Here are some pictures of some of his other buildings:

And a picture of a bridge he designed:

Vitra Design Museum

This is the Vitra Design Museum, located in Weil am Rhein, Germany, and designed by Frank O. Gehry. While the abstract style is characteristic of Gehry, his usual use of a large percentage of metal on the faces of the building is restrained here. 

The museum is centered on furniture and interior designing and switches out collections regularly. The architecture of the museum is as much an attraction as the art.

Binocular Building

While I don't have time to post anything long, here are some pictures of one of Gehry's most unconventional buildings: the Binocular Building. The office building was built in 1991 in Los Angeles, California. The building structure to the right of it that looks like wooden struts is also part of the building, but since the binocular part of it stands out so much, that is what the building is named after. The binocular part of the building is the entrance for the building, both people and cars.

Walt Disney Concert Hall

This is the Walt Disney Concert Hall located in Los Angeles, California. The architecture was designed by Frank O. Gehry, and the acoustics by Yasuhisa Toyota. It was opened in October 23, 2003. When opened, the Los Angeles Philharmonic practiced with an audience of celebrities. They were all wondering what the acoustics would be like. As the conductor was directing the music, he was startled, as he realized there were wrong notes in some of the performer's music. The orchestra had played this piece multiple times, but had never been a concert hall with good enough acoustics for the wrong notes to be heard among all the rest of the instruments. The concert hall, (which seated 2,265 people) was designed to perfection. 

It had an enormous cost: 130 million dollars, with a parking garage that cost 110 million. Much of the money was donated by Walt Disney's family and the Walt Disney Company. The organ was designed by Gehry. He was working with a person, Manuel Rosales, who told him whether or not the design would actually work; Gehry was coming up with outlandish designs, such as all the pipes upside down, and the keyboard console at the top! Finally he toned down his ideas, and came up with the design seen above. Some of the pipes are metal, and some are actually wood. The organ has a total of 6,125 pipes!

After the concert hall was opened, people living in apartment houses across from it were complaining about intense heat, causing them to run their air conditioning very high and as a result, spending a lot of money on the air conditioning bill. The reason of the heat was that the curved metal surfaces of the Walt Disney Concert Hall was directing sunlight straight at the apartments. When the temperature was measured in the area, the temperature got as high as 140 degrees! The fix the problem, Gehry had research done which figured out the panels that reflected the light, and had these tiles sanded to a duller sheen:

In all, this concert hall by Frank O. Gehry is a very interesting building. It is now the home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.