ChiefsPlanet - Life 5 Shocking Architectural Failures

Was surprised Kemper made it and the Hyatt Regency callapse didn't make the list

5 Shocking Architectural Failures

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People make mistakes, and sometimes those mistakes happen on the job. Usually, the incident is corrected and the whole thing is forgotten within minutes. However, the workplace mistake is harder to ignore when the person who makes it is an architect.

After all, when the teenager working the drive-thru window gives you a Quarter Pounder instead of a Big Mac, it causes a lot less trauma than when a 3,000-foot-long suspension bridge collapses into the Puget Sound.

In "The Yale Book of Quotations," the legendary American architect Frank Lloyd Wright is quoted as saying, “The physician can bury his mistakes, but the architect can only advise his client to plant vines.” While this statement from 1954 is still true today, it doesn’t take into account the architectural, design, and engineering errors that became possible in the decades after his death. Those mistakes have been bigger, costlier, and more spectacular than Wright could have imagined, and there are not enough vines in the world to hide them.

What are some of the more notable architectural failures in modern history? Here are five that impressed us:

Tacoma Narrows Bridge, Tacoma, WA

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Amazingly, the whole collapse was captured on video.

The Tacoma Narrows Bridge was a suspension bridge that connected the port city of Tacoma, WA, with the Kitsap Peninsula. It was the third-longest suspension bridge in the world when it opened to the public on July 1, 1940, but it closed four months later after a spectacular collapse.

The cause of the collapse was inadequate girders that were used to keep construction costs low. They failed to keep the bridge deck in place, allowing it to sway violently whenever a strong enough wind blew.

This situation was already noticeable to construction workers, who nicknamed it “Galloping Gertie.” The name stuck when the general public crossed the bridge and noticed its similarity to a bucking bronco. It finally collapsed on Nov. 7, 1940, under the stress of a 40 mile-per-hour wind.

Lotus Riverside, Shanghai, China

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Tenants had yet to move in, but one worker died in the incident.

The Lotus Riverside is a residential apartment complex in Shanghai consisting of eleven 13-story buildings. On the morning of June 27, 2009, one of them toppled over, just barely missing an adjacent building. Had it not missed, it might have caused one toppled building to topple into the next, creating a horrifying domino effect that, thankfully, did not come to pass.

The cause of the collapse was attributed to excavation that was in progress to create an underground garage. The earth removed from beneath the building was dumped into a landfill near a creek, and its weight caused the river bank to collapse. Water from the creek then seeped into the ground, turning the building’s foundation into mud.

Vdara Hotel & Spa, Las Vegas, NV

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Fortunately, singed hair was the only human casualty of the unintended death ray.

When researching hotels for an upcoming trip, many potential guests hope to find certain amenities, such as a mini-bar, a gym, or close proximity to sightseeing. However, the Vdara Hotel & Spa in Las Vegas offers a unique accoutrement that neither its guests nor its architect anticipated—a death ray.

The hotel opened in December 2009 and featured a unique, curved structure. However, its design collected solar rays and beamed them to the hotel swimming pool area. Guests sunning themselves nearby were regularly singed, such as Bill Pintas, who claimed that the hotel’s impromptu death ray had burned his hair and melted the plastic bag he had with him.

Playground at Pier One, Brooklyn Bridge Park, NY

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The offending domes have since been removed from the play area.

Most parents who take their children to the playground know the drill. Before putting their kids into a swing, they touch it first to make sure the seat, which has been sitting in the sun all day, isn’t too hot. However, the designers of the playground at Pier One in New York’s Brooklyn Bridge Park managed to overlook this principle when they designed three play structures for children to climb on, and built them out of steel.

The domed structures regularly became too hot to touch, much less climb. Geoffrey Croft, president of New York City Park Advocates, measured their temperature at more than 127 degrees, and parent Roula Fokas observed, “You can fry an egg on them." In July 2010, The New York Post reported the domes would be replaced with new equipment which, presumably, could be touched by anyone, at any time of year.

Kemper Arena, Kansas City, MO

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About an acre of the roof collapsed from excess water.

Kemper Arena is an indoor stadium in Kansas City, MO, that opened in 1974. It had been the site of the 1976 Republican National Convention and it won raves for its unique design. Rather than employ view-obstructing columns, the roof was suspended from trusses on its exterior.

On June 4, 1979, the roof collapsed when a heavy storm battered the city. Fortunately, it wasn’t being used at the time, so there were no injuries or fatalities, but it was a shock to the city nonetheless.

The roof had been designed to release rainwater slowly, in order to avoid flooding the nearby West Bottoms area. This caused rainwater to collect on top and pool anywhere the roof sagged, creating excess weight. Worse yet, the roof was suspended from hangers, and the strength of their bolts had been miscalculated. Once a single bolt gave way, many of the neighboring ones followed suit, ultimately leading to the roof’s collapse.

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