Albert Kahn T H E E VOLU TION OF TH E FAC TORY
“Albert Kahn’s industrial architecture ranges between 1905 and 1942, a period in the
U.S. animated by advanced labor struggles, grassroots activism, sabotages and mass
demonstrations for higher wages, better working conditions and freedom of assembly. “
Fig.: Ford River Rouge Glass Plant (1925).
THE FACTORY BUILDING IS WHERE THE 20TH CENTURY WAS BORN Kahn was responsible for a new thrust in the design of manufacturing facilities. The factory began to emerge as architecture expressive of 20th century civilization.
David Rasner r0826035 S2013
ARCHITEKTUR GESCHICHTE II
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“Mr. Kahn, can you design... factories?”
Fig. 2: Kahn Incorporated, firm layout (1939). Source: Albert Kahn Associates, Inc.
Albert Kahn (1869-1942) made major contributions to the design of factories in the 20th century, worldwide. He refined and popularized the reinforced-concrete factory between 1905 and the late 1910s and then developed innovative steel-framed factory designs in the 1920s and 1930s. Kahn achieved most of his design breakthroughs while working for Henry Ford and other automobile manufacturers. While taking on a large volume of factory commissions, Kahn revolutionized the operations of his architectural office. He fully integrated the work of specialists in architecture and engineering, utilized a team approach to design, and rationalized office operations.
A “plan factory to mass-produc buildings.
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Kahn’s office became and architectural assembly line, a “plan factory” to massproduce factory buildings. Although his work revolutionized industrial architecture, historians of American industry and technology have not adequately recognized his contributions. In contrast to more renowned architects like Frank Lloyd Wright, Kahn did not establish a design studio and produce scores of young disciples to spread his design gospel.
Albert Kahn was a modest, self-effacing; a very private man. While his more famous contemporaries based in Chicago or on the east cost fashioned highly visible buildings, Kahn labored in Detroit and specialized in factory design. Assembly-Line Architecture: Albert Kahn and the Evolution of the U.S. Auto Factory, 1905-1940.Charles K. Hyde. IA. The Journal of the Society for Industrial Archeology Vol.. 22, No. 2 (1996), pp. 5-24
Fig. 3: Albert Kahn (1930s). Source: Albert Kahn Associates, Inc.
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Fig. 4: American Landscape, Charles Sheeler (1930). Courtesy: Museum of Modern Art, NYC.
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Fig. 5: Palms Apartment House in Detroit, Michigan. George D. Mason and Albert Kahn (1902). Image courtesy: pinehurst19475@flickr.com (2014).
Photo Above: The Palms Apartment Building on Jefferson Avenue in Detroit (1901-02). Designed by Mason and Kahn, a six story concrete structure, faced with limestone.
The design, which shows Jacobean influence, gave Kahn his first opportunity to experiment with reinforced concrete.
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THE EVOLUTION OF THE FACTORY From office boy to eminent architect. Albert Kahn was born in Rhaunan, Germany, in 1869, the oldest of six children. Relatives in Detroit prompted the family’s decision to come to the United States in 1880.
After George Nettleton died in 1900, Kahn rejoined George Mason, one of his first employers, to design the Palms Apartment Building in Detroit during 1901 and 1902.
Talented in both music and art, Albert became a student of the sculptor Julius Melchers. When it became apparent that young Albert was color blind, Melchers found a place for him in the architectural office of Mason and Rice. Kahn began as an office boy but was soon promoted to draftsman.
The structure had six floors of reinforced concrete with a limestone facade. It took much courage in those days to work with reinforced concrete; codes we re virtually nonexistent and handbooks not available.
He was an avid student and advanced rapidly. Through his study in the firm’s library and on-the-job experience, he qualified for a scholarship award from the magazine American Architecture for a year’s study in Europe. Returning to Detroit with a new perspective, Kahn gained in experience as he furthered his career with Mason and Rice. He left that firm in 1896 to join the architectural firm of Nettleton and Trowbridge.
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ALBERT KAHN AND THE EVOLUTION OF THE FACTORY
1868-1940
Albert Kahn’s industrial architecture ranges between 1905 and 1942, a period in the U.S. animated by advanced labor struggles, grassroots activism, sabotages and mass demonstrations for higher wages, better working conditions and freedom of assembly. All the peaks of labor strife, the milestones of the american working class history, found their immediate translation in new rational configurations of the manufacturing space and more refined strategies of social integration, reducing the shop-floor to its minimum integer elements.
Palms Apartment House Detroid, Michigan 1902.
The two extremes of this progressive typological rarefaction of the industrial layout were the daylight factory, introduced
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at the beginning of the 20th century, and the formulated layout, developed during the intense WWII production for the Arsenal of Democracy.
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Kahn’s first experiment with reinforced concrete.
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Packard Motor Plant Detroid, Michigan 1903. • •
First reinforced concrete factory in Detroit. Made Ford realize Kahn’s potential.
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0 Daylight Factory
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Ford Motor Company Highland Park, 1909.
Ford Motor Company Glass Plant, 1924.
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Evolution of ferestration size. Expansive reinforced concrete.
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Steel structure/glass facade.
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Formulated Layout
General Motors Building Detroid, Michigan 1919.
Dodge Chicago Plant Chicago, Illinois 1941.
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First reinforced concrete factory in Detroit.
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At that time, the largest factory in the world. Hy-Rib concrete structure.
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Fig. 6: View of the principal and lateral facades of the Assembly Building No. 10, Packard Motor Car Company, Detroit, Michigan (1910).
1903: Albert Kahn, Incorporated After the affiliation with Mason, Kahn asserted his independence and started his own firm in 1902. His brother Julius joined him as chief engineer in 1903. Thus the firm of Albert Kahn, Inc., was launched. The first concrete structure by the new firm was the Engineering Building for the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The project made Julius aware of the limitations of the then - prevalent
empirical method of reinforcing concrete—based on experience with little scientific support. This led him to design and develop an engineered reinforcement system centered around a steel member that he patented as the Kahn bar.
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The first automotive client, Packard building no.10 In 1903 the new Kahn firm was chosen by Henry B. Joy, president of the Packard Motor Car Company, to design and build a new manufacturing building.
be possible. Number 10 was laid out as a large square with an open center court, the first major reinforced concrete framing used for an automobile factory.
The nine existing buildings of the plant were of conventional mill construction with wood floors. These oil-soaked floors were a constant fire hazard. In addition, the distance between necessary supports restricted flexibility in automobile production.
Since conveyors at the time were mostly floor supported, a sturdy floor slab and maximum clearance above were the prime needs; a beam and slab design suited these requirements best. The Packard building originally was two stories; two more stories were added later. Julius Kahn’s reinforcing system soon became well known and was used next excessively for reinforced concrete buildings throughout the country.
The new building, Number 10, had to be designed to overcome these problems, and concrete using the Kahn reinforcing system was the obvious answer. Both fire resistance and columns properly spaced to allow for placing of machinery would
Fig. 7: Backside, Assembly Building No. 10, Packard Motor Car Company, Detroit, Michigan (1910).
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Fig. 8: Packard Motor Car Company Plant (1910). Interior view show Kahn System construction. Courtesy: The National Automotive History Collection, Detroit Public Library). Source: Chris Meister, “Albert Kahn’s Partners in Industrial
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1903: IT’S ALL ABOUT THE COLUMN Advances in productivity. Albert Kahn, best known for his pioneering work in industrial architecture, namely designing the factories that housed the early assembly lines for Ford, Packard and General Motors, worked in a noticeably different style than his predecessors. Specifically Albert Kahn
transitioned the factory designs from traditional mill construction which was characterized by short beam spans, very dark interiors, and generally heavy timber construction which required at least some skilled labor to industrial architecture and the modern factory as we know it today.
Fig. 10: Highland Park Plant, Highland Park, Michigan. View from the interior (1910). Photo courtesy: Albert Kahn Associates, Inc.-in: Albert Kahn: Inspiration for the modern, Vrian Carter (ed.), University of Michigan of Art, University of Michigan, 2001, p. 32.
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Fig. 11: The Kahn system, showing the bars bent at 45° for shear reinforcement. International Library of Technology, vol 34D, Stone & Brick, &c (Scranton Pennsylvania) 1922 [1906-1912] 45, p. 15.
Industrial architecture and the modern factory as we know it today. The industrial designer George Nelson credits Albert Kahn with transitioning the factory from, “a joy to no one save possibly its owners; it was sooty, ugly, a source of blight wherever it appeared; the condition of its workers was appalling beyond belief” to “the status of architecture” (Nelson 7). Albert Kahn transitioned factory design to an architecture which we would refer to with a capital “A.” This new form of industrial architecture that Albert Kahn championed was characterized by the exact opposite of the traditional mill construction; long beam spans, the ability to
place heavy machinery on the top floor, modern day lit factories, and the speed of construction to name but a few things.
12). These advances in productivity were credited directly to Albert Kahn’s modern day lit factory designs.
These changes served to accomplish two main functions for the factory owners.
Marquis, Albert Nelson. “Biography of Julius Kahn.” The Book of Detroiters: A Biographical Dictionary of Leading Living Men of the City of Detroit. 1914.
First the new mechanized production processes of the time (i.e. the assembly line) could easily be laid out on the factory floor with plenty of space to reconfigure if necessary. Then along with the increased production from the assembly line, an increase in the productivity of the workers was achieved through “good lighting and ventilation” (Nelson
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Fig. 11 (top, left): Ford Motor Company, Engineering Laboratory. In Dearborn, Michigan, United States of America. By Albert Kahn (1924). Fig. 12 (bottom, left): Highland Park Plant, Highland Park, Michigan. Column Detail, Albert Kahn (1910). Source: Screengrab from “Albert Kahn, Architect of Modern Times. Dieter Marcello” (2012). Fig. 13 (top, right): Palazzo della Ragione. In Padua, Veneto, Italy. By Andrea Palladio (1549). Source: Wikimedia. Fig. 14 (bottom, right): Villa Serego, San Pietro in Cariano, Verona, Italy. Column Detail, Andrea Palladio (1570). Source: Screengrab from “Albert Kahn, Architect of Modern Times. Dieter Marcello” (2012).
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Fig. 15: Highland Park Plant, Highland Park, Michigan. Facade View, Albert Kahn (1910). Source: Screengrab from “Albert Kahn, Architect of Modern Times. Dieter Marcello” (2012).
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Fig. 16: Villa Serego, San Pietro in Cariano, Verona, Italy. Facade View, Andrea Palladio (1570). Source: Screengrab from “Albert Kahn, Architect of Modern Times. Dieter Marcello” (2012).
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Fig. 17: Kahn system of reinforced concrete, detail. Source: Federico Bucci, Albert Kahn: Architect of Ford, Princeton Architectural PRess, 1993, p. 32.
Fig. 18: Illustration of cross sectional and perspective views of the Kahn reinforcement bar, along with a diagram of the theoretical “truss action.� Source: Trussed Concrete Steel Company, Kahn System of Reinforced Concrete (Detroit: Kahn inc., 1904)
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Fig, 19: Concrete Casting (1910). Image Courtesy: Albert Kahn Associates, Inc.
Today’s widespread acceptance of exposed concrete as an architectural medium was anticipated by Albert Kahn more than 60 years ago. During the 20th anniversary celebration of the American Concrete Institute in 1924, Kahn made these predictions: “...what of the future for reinforced concrete? I am convinced that we have only made a fair start and that its development, both structural and artistic, will exceed any present expectations.
Furthermore, I believe that concrete in its most direct form will grow in use for exterior facings. Gradually we shall accustom ourselves to form marks, we shall not only accept them, but take advantage thereof. We shall eliminate cement washing and rubbing, even pointing, and gain an artistic effect through the play of light and shade and emphasis of the monolithic structure, which it really is.
Furthermore, we shall accustom ourselves to weather stains and make a virtue there of, just as the grime of London only adds interest to its architecture. We shall pay more attention to design in mass, to interesting outlines and less to minor details. The way has been shown in a number of existing works...”
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Fig. 20: Packard building no.10 Section Detail (1910). Source: http://svrdam.cca.qc.ca/ZooMI/Default.aspx?obj=PH2000%3a0160
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1910: THE DAYLIGHT FACTORY At about the same time, another automotive entrepreneur was becoming prominent: Henry Ford. Ford had purchased a 60-acre tract in the Detroit suburb of Highland Park. His two plants in Detroit had become inadequate, and his idea was to have an entire plant under one roof, with no open court or dividing walls. This was in contrast to his old system which had various manufacturing functions in separate buildings arranged in sequential order. Because of Kahn’s growing reputation in industrial architecture, Ford sought out the firm he believed could best turn his new ideas into reality. Albert Kahn developed the daylight system in two advanced articulations. On one hand, the multistory building, a three-dimensional concrete frame able to contain the vertical assembling processes all under one roof and, on the other hand, the horizontal workshop over one floor, a one story, roof lighted unobstructed working space. Production began at the Ford Highland Park Plant on New Year’s Day of 1910. The fourstory main building was 260 meter long, 40 meter wide, of reinforced concrete slab and beam construction throughout. For the first time, industrial steelsash windows we re used in conjunction with concrete framing. Next to the powerhouse an office building was constructed, also of reinforced concrete. In 1918 a six-story reinforced concrete building featuring mushroom columns was erected at the rear of the property. Between the sections of the building were glasscovered courts entered by railroad sidings.
Fig 28: Ford Motor Company, Highland Park Plant, Highland Park, Mich interior view (1918). Source: Federico Bucci, Albert Kahn: Architect of
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The daylight factory, birthplace of the 20th century. “On one hand, the multistory building, a three-dimensional concrete frame. On the other, the
higan. The building annexed to the original factory, Ford, Princeton Architectural Press, 1993, p. 47.
horizontal workshop over one floor, a one story, roof lighted unobstructed working space.�
These courts had no sidewalls. An overhead crane conveyed material from the rail road cars to the various floor levels, where there were cantilevered balconies.
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Fig. 29 (top): Highland Park Plant, Panorama (1910). Source: Stitched from Screengrabs from: “Albert Kahn, Architect of Modern Times. Dieter Marcello� (2012). Fig. 30 (bottom): Highland Park Plant, Layout Plan. Source: Ford Methods and the Ford Shops by Horace Lucien Arnold and Fay Leone Faurote.
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Fig. 32 (bottom, left): Factory Atrium with skylight windows. Source: Ken Hudak@flickr.com (2015). Fig. 33 (bottom, right): Ford Model T Plant Executive Offices. Source: Mark Finazzo@flickr.com (2015).
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Fig. 31: Ford Highland Park Plant, 1909. Source: The Henry Ford@flickr. com (2013).
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Fig. 34: Ford Motor Company, River Rouge Plant, Dearborn, Michigan. Section and elevations (1917). Source: Federico Bucci, Albert Kahn: Architect of Ford, Princeton Architectural PRess, 1993, p. 56.
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Fig. 35: Model-T assembly line, Highland Park Plant (1924). Source: http://myautoworld.com/ ford/history/ford-t/ford-t-5/ford-t-5.html
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Fig. 36: River Rouge Plant, Dearborn, Michigan. View of the interior showing the vertical production line. Source: Albert Kahn: Inspiration for the Modern, Biran Carter (ed.), University of Michigan Museum of Art, University of Michigan, 2001.
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Fig. 37: Model-T assembly line, Highland Park Plant (1924). Source: http://myautoworld.com/ford/history/ford-t/ford-t-5/ ford-t-5.html
Only 20 years earlier, factories had dark interiors; small, sooty windows; masonry walls; and clumsy supports spaced close together. Kahn was responsible for a new thrust in the design of manufacturing facilities. The factory began to emerge as architecture expressive of 20th century civilization. Kahn’s plants we re well laid out, efficient, airy, and admitted more daylight than ever before. Workers became more involved and productive.
In essence a new architecture had emerged with no uncertainty, indecision, or traces of the old order.
A second industrial revolution was unfolding with the development of the moving assembly line.
Windows in the wood and masonry mills of the 19th century were small and far apart because the wall itself was the load-bearing structure.
This factor was ably supported by the new industrial architecture, with the Kahn organization among those at the forefront.
With the advent of reinforced concrete, the building could be framed with vertical and horizontal members spaced to allow for large expanses of glass between. The size of bays and increased spans provided more space and flexibility for future expansion.
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Fig. 38 (top): Henry Ford’s assembly line building a Model-T Ford (1910s). Fig. 39 (bottom): General Motors model Assembly Lines (1933).
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The Hudson Car Company plant was also designed by Kahn’s firm; it was built in 1910. This was a large rectangular three - story reinforced concrete building with mushroom columns. Unlike Ford’s single plant under one roof, the Hudson plant had inner courts to provide for more light and air. In addition, a two-story office building was constructed of reinforced concrete,
The automotive industry, with its new production techniques, had an inevitable effect on other industries. Kahn’s reputation as the designer of a new industrial architecture spread internationally, and other manufacturers sought his services. The list grew to include makers of textiles, clothing, cement, business machines,
Fig. 40: Hudson Motor Car Company (1909). Source: http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Hudson_Motor_Car_ Company
faced with stucco. Green tiles accented the entrance This building represented a simple new architecture which enhanced its concrete frame.
food, and chemicals. Buildings for colleges, hospitals, churches, schools, banks, theaters, and offices also we re among the firm’s commissions.
Following the Hudson plant came a succession of industrial commissions between 1910 and 1919. The original Dodge Brothers plant in Hamtramck, Michigan (another Detroit suburb), was followed by a five - story complex for the Burroughs Adding Machine Company.
During Depression years of the early 1930s, the industrial complex, particularly in and around Detroit, suffered greatly.
Both were of reinforced concrete with inner courts. The same type of construction was used in the Fisher Body plant built in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1921. This building was straight forward, unadorned, and flattened out into a long slab-like form.
In spite of this, by 1938 the volume of Kahn’s work reached a total of 19% of all architect-designed industrial buildings in the United States.
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Fig. 41: Criss-Crossed Conveyors, River Rouge Plant, Ford Motor Company. Charles Sheeler (1927). Courtesy: The Lane Collection (metmuseum.org).
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Fig 42: Model T, exploded view. 3D Model: https:// grabcad.com/library/paddychassis
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Fig 43: Packard Assembly Line, page from the Packard Magazine, Issue 1 (June, 1910).
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Fig. 44: For Model T, lineup advert (1911). 1911 proved to be a stellar year for the Model T. Sales were way up and the cost of the vehicle was coming down. Ford was now the undisputed major car producer in the United States Source: Ford Motor Company.
Ford developed principles of mass production for the continuously moving assembly line, adopting methods of labor division like those of the meatpacking industry and following Frederick Taylor’s Scientific Management methods. Ford focused on worker efficiency, assigning each worker to repeat a specific task, while the object moved in position along a moving belt. That year, the company reduced the Medel T’s production time from 728 to 93 minutes. To house the new assembly line production process, the plant expanded beginning in 1914 with the New Shop, which included several narrow six-story buildings linked by skylit craneways that allowed heavy materials to be lifted to the cantilevered platforms in an efficient, mechanized handling system. Taking advantage of the multi-storied building,
workers hoisted raw materials up to the top floor to assemble the Model T using overhead conveyors invented by Detroitbased firm Jervis B. Webb. The production descended via gravity chutes through holes cut through the floors. As a threedimensional grid matrix, the processing flowed from floor-to-floor and end-toend. By the end of 1914, the plant completed 248,307 Model Ts, and by 1917 that number nearly tripled. Thus, Ford quickly outgrew Highland Park and built a new River Rouge Plant, also designed by Albert Kahn, in 1917. By 1920, one Ford rolled off the assembly line every minute, and half the automobiles in the world were Model Ts.
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Fig 46: The Ford Factory on the River Rouge in 1927.
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Fig 47 (top): Ford River Rouge Glass Plant (1925). Fig 48 (bottom): Ford River Rouge Glass Plant (1925).
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Fig 49: View from east, showing east facade of Power House (1925).
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1941: DO MORE WITH LESS Kahn faces World War II challenges When the United States entered World War II, Albert Kahn Inc. was called upon to expand. The staff was increased substantially and hours were extended to meet the need for a new breed of industrial facility—the war plant. Structural steel was in short supply because of demands for steel in munitions and war equipment. Finally all structural steel was banned for use in construction. Responding to this problem would require an innovative solution. The Kahn organization solved the problem by designing war plants with multiple arch thin-slab concrete roofs, supported on concrete beams and columns.
in place on the form. Concrete was poured and 5 days later the forms were lowered on their supporting braces for cleaning. The concrete columns stood at the sides; above the lowered forms curved the arched reinforced concrete roof. A concrete girder spanned the distance between columns. A series of ribs was cast at
The huge Pratt & Whitney aircraft engine plant built near Kansas City in 1943 was typical of both the new design approach and some new construction methods. Never before in plant construction had the theory of the assembly line been brought into play on such a massive scale to create the building itself. Mobile roof forms, each 25 meter long, were set up side by side across a 300 meter width of previously placed floor slab. Each form was fitted with wheels and mounted on rails. Once the barrelshaped wooden form was in place, it was jacked into position to have a light mesh of reinforcing steel fitted
Fig. 50: They’ve got the guts : back ‘em up with more metal. Cornwell, Dean (1943). Source: http://digital.library. unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc564/
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Fig. 51: Dodge Chicago military plant, main entrance (1943). Source: http:// dodge100years.com/media-past-1930.html:
right angles to complete the support and absorb the thrust of the barrel arch roof slabs. Every 7 days the forms were rolled forward their full length, leaving behind an 80xl,000-foot section of reinforced concrete roof with its supporting columns. Except for installation of lighting, other fixtures, and outer walls, the building was ready to receive machine tools.
This system not only used reinforcing steel economically but also produced the necessary war plants in record time. The Dodge Machine and Assembly Plant in Chicago was built in the same way; it was the largest concrete factory ever constructed. With all its ancillary buildings it covered an area close to 5lâ „2 million square feet, 31â „2 million of which we re under one roof. It had a column
spacing of 10x12 meter and a clear height of 7 meter. Repetition of this design for other owners had column spacings up to 12x12 meter, Built during war restrictions, it required only 2.6 pounds per square foot of reinforcing steel for the total construction, including floor slab and footings.
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Fig. 52 (top): Dodge Chicago plant, assembly line (1940s). Fig. 53 (bottom): Dodge Chicago plant, Dodge Chicago plant, test cells (1940s).
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Fig. 54 (top, left): Dodge Chicago plant, assembly line (1940s). Fig. 55 (top, right): Chrysler built B-29 engine. Fig. 56 (bottom): Dodge Chicago plant in comparison to lower Manhattan, NYC.
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Fig. 57: Dodge Chicago plant, plant under construction, assembly building (1940s).
Dodge Chicago plant, plant under construction, assembly building (1940s).
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Fig. 59: Dodge Chicago plant, finished facade of the assembly building (1942).