WORLD EXPOS A HISTORY OF STRUCTURES Isaac López César
Isaac López César (Ferrol, 1977) is a PhD Architect. University Specialist in the Design and Calculation of Building Structures. Professor of Physics and Structures at the Higher Technical School of Architecture in A Coruña since 2007. He has designed and calculated numerous structures in the spheres of both public and private construction. His research has centred on the field of deployable structures and the history of architectural structures. He is the author of several articles, as well as of a variety of patents related to mobile and deployable structures.
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgements.
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Foreword: Vicente González Loscertales.
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Secretary General of the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE), Paris. 21
Preface: Javier Estévez Cimadevila. PhD Architect. Full Professor in Structures in the Higher Technical School of Architecture in A Coruña.
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Introduction.
CHAPTER 1 The Crystal Palace and the development of iron structures.
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1.1 Foundations of the Industrial Revolution.
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1.2 The Industrial Revolution in architecture.
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1.2.1 Scientific breakthroughs.
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1.2.2 New materials and typologies.
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1.3 The Crystal Palace.
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1.3.1 The Crystal Palace and prefabrication. A synthesis of the Industrial Revolution.
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1.3.2 The Crystal Palace and the birth of the portal frame.
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CHAPTER 2 World Expos in the 19th century. Developments in large span decks.
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2.1 The search for large spans and typological innovation in rectangular decks.
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2.1.1 Alexis Barrault and the expansion joint: the Palais de l’Industrie in the Exposition Universelle of Paris in 1855.
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2.1.1.1 Precedents and a descriptive introduction.
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2.1.1.2 The problems of horizontal stabilisation and thermal movements.
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2.1.1.3 The controversy surrounding the span record.
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2.1.2 Neutralising thrusts in the metal arch and the Galerie des Machines in the Exposition Universelle of Paris in 1867.
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2.1.3 A new portal frame typology for large spans: the Galerie des Machines from the Exposition Universelle of Paris in 1878.
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2.1.3.1 Historical Precedents.
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2.1.3.2 The solution to the thermal problem?
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2.1.4 Origin and evolution of the metal arch: the Galerie des Machines from the Exposition Universelle of Paris 1889.
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2.1.4.1 Precedents of the metal arch.
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2.1.4.2 Main characteristics of the structure.
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2.1.4.3 Horizontal stabilisation, thrusts and thermal issues.
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2.1.4.4 The controversy surrounding the span.
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2.1.4.5 The metal three-hinged arch after the Gallery erection in 1889.
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2.1.5 The american response: the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building from the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago 1893.
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2.1.5.1 Contributions. 2.2 The search for large spans and typological innovation in circular decks.
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2.2.1 The first iron and glass dome in the world: the Halle au BlĂŠ of Paris.
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2.2.2 Fire in the first american iron dome: the Crystal Palace from the 136
New York Expo 1853.
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2.2.3 An extraordinary achievement: the Rotunde Building in the 148
Weltausstellung in Vienna 1873. 2.2.4 An undervalued milestone: the main building in the Exposition Universelle, Internationale et Coloniale in Lyon 1894.
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CHAPTER 3 The World Expos and the race for the tallest building in the world.
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3.1 The Eiffel Tower: its precedents.
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3.1.1 High-rise constructions: projects never built.
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3.1.2 High-rise construction: the actual achievements.
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3.1.3 The experience of Gustave Eiffel and his collaborators.
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3.2 The Eiffel Tower: Project and construction.
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3.2.1 The Tower project.
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3.2.2 The structural principle.
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3.2.3 The structural skeleton and puddled iron.
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3.2.4 The foundations and Triger’s system.
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3.2.5 Workers assaulting the skies: the prefabrication, assembly and lifts.
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3.3 The Eiffel Tower and its architectural consequences.
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CHAPTER 4 The arrival of reinforced concrete.
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4.1 Reinforced concrete: first developments.
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4.2 Reinforced concrete: the first large architectural structures.
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4.3 Reinforced concrete and the World Expos.
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4.3.1 Reinforced concrete up until the Brussels Expo in 1958.
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4.3.2 Reinforced concrete after Brussels 1958: late shell structures and 242
proposals with a sculptural character.
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CHAPTER 5 Tension decks: origin and peak. 5.1 Tensile structures in the 19th century.
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5.1.1 The technological context: intermittent contributions.
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5.1.2 Expos in the 19th century: brilliant, intermittent contributions.
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5.2 The enormous boom in tensile structures in the 20th century.
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5.2.1 The technological context. 5.2.2 World Expos in the 20th century: the triumphant entrance of
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tensile structures. 5.2.2.1 The Travel and Transport Building in the World’s Fair in Chicago 1933: an isolated structural experiment.
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5.2.2.2 The rebirth of structural brilliance in Expo ’58 in Brussels.
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5.2.2.3 The New York State Pavilion in the 1964-1965 New York’s World’s Fair: the continuation of the “bicycle wheel”.
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5.2.2.4 The Seattle Center Coliseum in the Century 21 Exposition in Seattle 1962: “limitless spans”.
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5.2.2.5 The Federal Republic of Germany Pavilion in Expo ’67 in Montreal. Frei Otto: utopia and formal innovation through “natural autoshapes”.
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5.2.2.6 The influence of the change in direction initiated by Frei Otto.
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5.2.2.7 Other historically relevant structures in the World Expos.
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5.2.2.8 “Tensile designed” structures: the contribution of the Expos.
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5.2.2.9 Tensegrity structures: the contribution of the Expos.
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CHAPTER 6 World Expos: the zenith of pneumatic structures.
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6.1 The origin of pneumatic structures.
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6.2 The World Expos: the zenith.
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6.2.1 The Expos prior to Osaka ’70: sporadic contributions.
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6.2.2 Osaka 1970: the Expo as a stage for great structural milestones.
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6.2.3 Osaka 1970: the Expo as an exponent of design singularity.
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6.2.4 Osaka 1970: the Expo as a pneumatic structural ensemble.
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6.2.5 Osaka 1970. Unbuilt projects: the Expo as a catalyst for the imagination.
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6.2.6 Osaka 1970: the Expo as a generator of building codes.
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6.2.7 Pneumatic structures in Expos after Osaka 1970.
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CHAPTER 7 Space frames: the Expos between utopia and reality.
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7.1 Space structures: origin and development.
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7.2 The brilliant contribution made by the World Expos.
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7.2.1 Space frames and false tensegrities.
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7.2.2 Space megastructures: between utopia and reality.
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CHAPTER 8 The return to wood.
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8.1 Wooden structures: origin and development.
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8.2 The contribution of the Expos at three key moments.
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Afterword.
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Notes and bibliography.
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Biographic reference.
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CHAPTER 2
WORLD EXPOS IN THE 19TH CENTURY. DEVELOPMENTS IN LARGE SPAN DECKS To a great extent, the history of the World Expos in the second half of the 19th century makes up the history of iron architecture. The desire of each country to outdo the previous Expo in a display of economic and technological power led to the creation of buildings that were real structural milestones for their time. Along these lines, France wanted to emulate England to become the standard in the industrial world, with Paris and London being the cities in which the most World Expos were held during the 19th century. In this way, iron was used in each building, the previous boundaries of knowledge were defied, and evident innovation occurred in structural typologies leading to greater spans and new technological images. At the same time, the progress made through these singular buildings would translate into applications in ordinary construction. This process would come to a head in the Exposition Universelle held in Paris in 1889, with buildings such as the Galerie des Machines by F. Dutert and V. Contamin and the Eiffel Tower, an authentic emblem of the city. The erection of the first large buildings in the World Fairs were causing a huge impact and creating an atmosphere of technological optimism that seemed to portend great achievements. Thus, in an article already published in the February 1856 issue of the French architecture and engineering journal “Nouvelles Annales de la Construction”, the following can be found: “The buildings created for the World Expos are the most impressive and characteristic manifestation of modern architecture. Their appearance in the history of art is an example that may be used as a starting point for a new era of modernity. The surface area of the Crystal Palace in London is four times bigger that St. Peter’s in Rome. The surface area of the Palais de l’Industrie in Paris is two and a half times bigger than this basilica. These buildings lead us to believe that modern construction will produce colossal designs in the 19th century that will go down in the annals of History”. [Ref (38) Nouvelles Annales] Between 1851 and 1889, numerous World Expos were held: New York 1853, Paris 1855, London 1862, Paris 1867, London 1871, Paris 1872, Lyon 1872, Vienna 1873, Philadelphia 1876, Paris 1878, Sydney 1879, Melbourne 1880, Amsterdam 1883, Antwerp 1884, New York 1885, London 1886, Barcelona 1888, Brussels 1888 and Copenhagen 1888. The historical analysis will focus on those buildings that are key pieces in the typological evolution of iron structures. To do this, we will distinguish decks with a basically rectangular layout on the one hand (made up of parallel arches or portal frames) and those with a circular layout on the other.
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2.1 THE SEARCH FOR LARGE SPANS AND TYPOLOGICAL INNOVATION IN RECTANGULAR DECKS
In this section we will refer to those decks with a slightly rectangular layout with structural typologies consisting of trusses, portal frames or arches arranged in a basically parallel fashion.
2.1.1 Alexis Barrault and the expansion joint: The Palais de l’Industrie in the Exposition Universelle of Paris in 1855 The “Première Exposition Universelle des Produits de l’Industrie” was held in Paris in 1855, in response to the earlier Expo in London in 1851. From this date onwards until the end of the 19th century, and in spite of the aforementioned rivalry between England and France, the most important Expos would take place in France, mainly due to its economic prosperity. The main building for the Expo was the Palais de l’Industrie, a construction with a metal inner structure and an ashlar enclosure that intended to align with French tastes of that time. Created by the architect M.M. Viel and the engineers Alexis Barrault and G. Bridel, the building would be located between the Champs Élisées and the Seine.
2.1.1.1 Precedents and a descriptive introduction To bring the technological context of the time into focus, we should mention two precedents to this building which, in turn, held the world record for span. They are Lime Street Station in Liverpool, which was built by Turner in 1849 and which reached a span of 150 feet (45.72 metres) (Fig 2.1 to Fig 2.3), and New Street Station in Birmingham, designed by E.A. Cowper from the firm Fox, Henderson & Co., the builders on the Crystal Palace in London, and finished in 1854 with a span of 212 feet (64.62 metres) (Fig 2.4 to Fig 2.7). Originally, railways stations were built with decks made up of various short spans supported by intermediate iron columns; examples of this are Euston Station (Fig 1.25 and Fig 1.26) and Tri Junct Railway Station (Fig 1.27), both mentioned earlier. This was a disadvantage for the movement of merchandise, passengers and machinery. Lime Street Station and New Street Station are two of the first examples of a large station in which the deck has only one span. Lime Street Station made use of curved trusses supported at two points and made of bars and cables. These trusses lay on a cast-iron column at one end, and on a masonry
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wall at the other. They were hinged to the columns and supported on the wall with rollers, which eliminated any risk of horizontal thrust. Following traditional techniques in stations, horizontal stabilisation was achieved along the building with a masonry wall running longitudinally at one end and arched iron girders joining the columns at the other end. A curved truss was also used in New Street Station in Birmingham, although in this case with X-shaped bars. The truss was hinged on a masonry wall and was connected to a cast-iron column with rollers. Along the building, horizontal stabilisation was achieved in the same way as in the case above, with a masonry wall running longitudinally and arched girders that joined the columns. In terms of span, these two buildings were the immediate precedents. The Palais de l’Industrie in the Exposition Universelle of Paris in 1855 was made up of a main volume that was 252.2 metres long by 108.2 metres wide (Fig 2.8 to Fig 2.14). Six other, smaller blocks were added to this structure, housing the accesses, stairs and other secondary uses. The building enclosure was formed by ashlar walls, while the inner structure was made up of wrought and cast iron. The deck of this large space had a truly novel design for a metal structure. It had a central vault flanked by two side vaults (Fig 2.13). The central vault had a span of 48 metres, while that of the side vaults was 24 metres. These side vaults encircled the building and can also be seen in the longitudinal section of the same (Fig 2.14). The
Fig 2.1 Lime Street Station, Liverpool. Turner. 1849. Cross-section. [Source: Ref (305) Vierendeel, Arthur]
Fig 2.2. Lime Street Station, Liverpool. Turner. 1849. Longitudinal section. [Source: Ref (305) Vierendeel, A.] Fig 2.3 Lime Street Station, Liverpool. Turner. 1849. Structural details. Note the sliding support in the two upper details. [Source: Ref (305) Vierendeel, A.]
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Fig 2.4. New Street Station, Birmingham. E.A. Cowper. 1854. Cross-section. [Source: Ref (305) Vierendeel, A.]
Fig 2.5. (Left) New Street Station, Birmingham. E.A.Cowper. 1854. Longitudinal section. [Source: Ref (305) Vierendeel, Arthur] Fig 2.6. (Right) New Street Station, Birmingham. E.A.Cowper. 1854. Detail of the joint between chords, vertical members and diagonals. [Source: Ref (305) Vierendeel, Arthur]
Fig 2.7. New Street Station, Birmingham. E.A. Cowper. 1854. Sliding joint between the truss and the cast-iron column. [Source: Ref (305) Vierendeel, Arthur]
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central vault was 192 metres long and measured 35.96 metres at its highest point above ground level. There were two galleries with a ground and first floor between the central and the side vaults. These galleries had a span of 4 metres measured at the column axes. There was another gallery along the perimeter with two levels and a span of 2.1 metres measured at the column axes. All these galleries also encircled the building and could be seen in the longitudinal section (Fig 2.14). The three vaults were covered with glass sheets. The intermediate and perimeter galleries were covered with zinc sheets. The three vaults were made up of wrought iron X-shaped trussed arches 2 metres deep (Fig 2.15). The main vault had 26 arches. The distance between axes was 8 metres, except at the ends, where it was 4 metres. The vaults were finished with Pratt trusses joined to the arches through quarter-circle rigid connections (Fig 2.21). Likewise, there was a third structural order which measured 50 cm at the axes, followed the curve of the arches and made up the ironwork for the glass panes.
Fig 2.8. Palais de l’Industrie. A. Barrault, G. Bridel, M. Viel. 1855. [Source: Ref (101) Bouin, Philippe / Chanut, Christian-Philippe] Fig 2.9. Palais de l’Industrie. A. Barrault, G. Bridel, M. Viel. 1855. [Source: Bibliothèque Nationale de France]
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Fig 2.10. Palais de l’Industrie. A. Barrault, G. Bridel, M. Viel. 1855. Inside view in a period painting. [Source: its creators]
Fig 2.11. Palais de l’Industrie. Photograph taken during an exhibition in 1896. [Source: Ref (226) Loyer, François]
Fig 2.12. Palais de l’Industrie. Plan. [Source: Ref (305) Vierendeel, Arthur]
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There were four more mesh-reinforced domes on the inside that created exhibition spaces at atmospheric pressure. The space between the inner domes and the outer one was pressurised with a differential pressure of 30 mm of water pressure (30 Kg/m2) that could be increased to 70 mm (70 Kg/m2) under strong wind conditions. Mamoru Kawaguchi and Yutaka Murata would later continue their research along these lines, creating notable structures such as the two Pavilions for the World Orchid Conference held in Tokyo in 1987 (Fig 6.100). One of the pavilions was a dome with a diameter of 75 metres, while the other was in the shape of a “worm� and had a width of 40 metres and a length of 100 m. Both structures were reinforced with cables between which a mesh made of synthetic fibre cables was stretched (Fig 6.101).
Fig 6.100. Pavilions for the World Orchid Conference. Tokyo 1987. Mamoru Kawaguchi and Yutaka Murata. Aerial view. [Source: Ref (206) Ishii, Kazuo]
Fig 6.101. Domed pavilion at the World Orchid Conference. Tokyo 1987. Mamoru Kawaguchi and Yutaka Murata. Detail of the membrane reinforced with a mesh of synthetic fibre cables. [Source: Ref (71) Kenchiku Bunka]
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These two pavilions were undoubtedly influenced by the Grupo Fuyo Pavilion in Expo Portopia, since it is Mamoru Kawaguchi himself who established the relationship between these two works in the minutes of the “Primer Encuentro Internacional Estructuras Ligeras para Grandes Luces”, held in Seville in 1992. Kawaguchi refers to the Pavilions in the World Orchid Conference in the following way: “A more recent example of the same system (after describing the pneumatic dome in the Portopia Expo in 1981 as “a typical example of this system”) can be found in the two pavilions for the Twelfth World Orchid Conference held in Tokyo in March 1987, designed by myself with the collaboration of Yutaka Murata.” [Ref (74) Kawaguchi, Mamoru] Another significant pneumatic example to follow Expo Osaka is the Technocosmos Pavilions for the Tksukuba Expo 1985 (Fig 6.102 to Fig 6.104; Fig 6.106 and Fig 6.107). They were three pavilions with similar characteristics created by the architects Kohyama Atelier and the engineer Kazuo Ishii. The largest of these had a clear span of 27 metres, a length of 40 metres and an outside height of 16.5 metres. The main contribution of these pavilions was the use of a new patent for a pneumatic structure called “Airsolid”, consisting in a lenticular double membrane connected by inner elements. According to Professor Felix Escrig: “As they have a great radius of curvature, these structures develop large surface stresses and the inflated space may have considerable depth. The two skins are normally connected so that these connectors are under tension, thus limiting the depth. […] The fact that there are two layers implies generating global bending when external loads are applied. One layer is therefore under compression forces that should not exceed the tension stresses from the prestressing, while the other will be under increased tension forces. The greater the inflation pressure, the greater the resistance to this bending. […] If the connections between the two layers are vertical, then they will only diminish the separation between them; as they lean, they can collaborate with the shear stress.” [Ref (152) Escrig, Félix / Sánchez, José]
Fig 6.102. Technocosmos Pavilions. Tksukuba Expo 1985. Kazuo Ishii and Kohyama Atelier. [Source: Ref (206) Ishii, Kazuo]
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Fig 6.103. Inside the larger Technocosmos Pavilion. Tksukuba Expo 1985. Clear span of 27 metres. Kazuo Ishii and Kohyama Atelier. [Source: Ref (206) Ishii, Kazuo]
Fig 6.104. Technocosmos Pavilions. Tksukuba Expo 1985. Kazuo Ishii and Kohyama Atelier. Inside the pneumatic structure with the connecting elements between the membranes. [Source: Ref (206) Ishii, Kazuo]
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