Issue 5

I am conscious that the subject of this short article is, to say the least of it, controversial. May I endeavour to defeat the “ayes ” and the “ noes ” with one fell blow, by stating a fact which must be agreed - that yes! Examinations are necessary - provided they are the right type of Examination! Ignotus

The Chairman said all would agree they had had a very interesting paper; he asked the meeting to accord Mr. Steinberg a hearty vote of thanks. There were one or two questions he would like to ask. First of all with regard to the bridge where the work had been carried out largely by means of cable ways, he would like to ask what type of skip had been used for depositing the concrete? Were they tipping or drop bottom skips? He was greatly interested in the co-ordination of design and execution. There was rather a tendency among engineers to get out designs without full consideration of how the work was to be carried out.

The Chairman sketched a section of the building referred to in the paper 50 ft. wide and 500 ft. high - and said that when one divided that into 35 stories one would appreciate the importance of what had been said about joints. Perhaps the author had not emphasised as strongly as he might have done what really happened as the result of wind pressure, and the Chairman drew curves illustrating the bending which would occur at the various heights in such a building. What happened at the top level, he said, depended upon the rigidity of the structure at the roof - whether one used a truss or a girder. If a girder were used, the effect of wind pressure was to reduce bending similar to that which occurred at the lower levels.

Through the kindness of Messrs. Pelnard-Considere et Caquot, the writer recently had the opportunity of making a close inspection of several remarkable bridges in reinforced concrete now under construction to their designs. One of these bridges is on the main road between Annecy and Geneva, and the others in or near to Paris. Although differing widely in type, they all show the same remarkable fertility of invention which characterises the best French engineering, and the same meticulous care in the theoretical investigation of every detail in the design.

The new Science Museum which was opened by H.M. the King, accompanied by the Queen, on the 20th March, is the first stage of an important scheme which will extend ultimately from Exhibition Road to Queen's Gate, the total length of the building being 1,150 ft.

After six thousand years of development, the science of building, during the last three decades, has acquired two things that contribute more to business efficiency and human happiness than any it employed before. The use of one brought the other. Steel made speed possible. Speed has allowed building to change in direct. ratio with human relationships, which have changed and changed again with a rapidity previously never even imagined. Together they have given us the one distinctly new contribution to the world's architectural progress that we have had in centuries, the steel-skeleton skyscraper. They have made old methods useless and new ones necessities to solve the problems of planning and constructing our annual crop of taller end larger buildings. Harvey Wiley Corbett

Sir, On March 12th, 1928, the world was shocked, and the engineering profession humiliated by an awful disaster, the failure of the St. Francis Dam near Los Angeles, Calif. More than 200 people perished and a great property loss was suffered.