> the Port Authority also hired Emery Roth and Sons, a New York architect notable for designing unremarkable but extremely space-efficient buildings, as associate architect.
This characterization surprises me. Is this a different person from the Emery Roth who designed many of the famous buildings on Central Park West? Is it one of the less successful sons?
A lot of architectural firms get passed from parent to child. I met I.M. Pei Jr. at a planning meeting for redeveloping Kendall Square in Cambridge, MA in the late 1970s. Those planning meetings give one a strange feeling. There's an area you know like Kendall Square with the F&T Diner, the MIT film department, the building where Bell invented the telephone and then there's this model of the same space but with only a handful of buildings the same and even the streets changed here and there. Somehow, both the future and the present seem unreal. Looking back, that model more or less became the reality. They moved the subway station, demolished the film department's building, closed the F&T and I have no idea of what happened to Bell's old lab. Maybe the plaque is still there but on a new building.
Most sources I've found credit Skilling with the tube design (though it's hard to say how much of a team effort it was.) Robertson's obituary, for instance, when describing what he did on the WTC doesn't mention the tube design:
"The twin towers offered Robertson the opportunity to engage in pioneering research. He helped develop the first boundary layer wind tunnel and conducted the first experiments on the sensitivity of humans to the sway of buildings. He conceived the idea for a viscoelastic damper, which he developed and later patented with engineers from 3M Co. He developed a technique for calculating stack pressure in high-rises and the concept of the shaft wall partition."
According to Amazon, the author cited in notes at the bottom, is Anthony Robins. (Not Robbins)
Thanks, fixed.
Fantastic as usual.
I've seen the full page ad that the article ends on and every time it gives me a sense of dissonance, knowing how the story ended...
Excellent case study, though, looking forward to the last part.
> the Port Authority also hired Emery Roth and Sons, a New York architect notable for designing unremarkable but extremely space-efficient buildings, as associate architect.
This characterization surprises me. Is this a different person from the Emery Roth who designed many of the famous buildings on Central Park West? Is it one of the less successful sons?
Yeah, I think this is one of the sons.
A lot of architectural firms get passed from parent to child. I met I.M. Pei Jr. at a planning meeting for redeveloping Kendall Square in Cambridge, MA in the late 1970s. Those planning meetings give one a strange feeling. There's an area you know like Kendall Square with the F&T Diner, the MIT film department, the building where Bell invented the telephone and then there's this model of the same space but with only a handful of buildings the same and even the streets changed here and there. Somehow, both the future and the present seem unreal. Looking back, that model more or less became the reality. They moved the subway station, demolished the film department's building, closed the F&T and I have no idea of what happened to Bell's old lab. Maybe the plaque is still there but on a new building.
i believe the tubular system is probably more accurately credited to Leslie Robertson, who was the lead structural designer of the WTC towers
Most sources I've found credit Skilling with the tube design (though it's hard to say how much of a team effort it was.) Robertson's obituary, for instance, when describing what he did on the WTC doesn't mention the tube design:
"The twin towers offered Robertson the opportunity to engage in pioneering research. He helped develop the first boundary layer wind tunnel and conducted the first experiments on the sensitivity of humans to the sway of buildings. He conceived the idea for a viscoelastic damper, which he developed and later patented with engineers from 3M Co. He developed a technique for calculating stack pressure in high-rises and the concept of the shaft wall partition."
https://www.enr.com/articles/51201-world-renowned-structural-engineer-les-robertson-enrs-man-of-the-year-in-1989-dies
There was a joke going around architecture departments in the early 1970s:
Interviewer: Why did you built two 110 story towers rather than one 220 story tower?
Yamasaki: I wanted to build to a human scale.
And, another fascinating read. Thank you!
Fascinating!