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The MAGIC Palace of RADIO CITY

JUST a few weeks ago in a building covering three New York City blocks from Forty Eighth to Fifty First street, tycoons of the electrical, radio, motion picture, entertainment and art world sat down in company with 1200 select guests to dedicate the completion of the Rockefeller financed monument to the 13 year old industry of broadcasting—Radio City.

Built to accommodate and anticipate rapidly outgrown and outgrowing needs of the broadcasting industry, this modern engineering wonder tops all superlatives. The industry it represents has grown the fastest toward national import, in the shortest space of any industry of our time. The first national broadcast occurred but 13 years ago when Dr. Frank Conrad, of the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company put on the air the events of the Harding election from station KDKA, set up informally in his garage in Pittsburgh. The building is our biggest, has the most “mosts.”
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Strange Bridges

A shopping district is housed in the Ponte Vecchio, over the Arno River at Florence Italy. The roofed bridge is lined with stores’ Building this viaduct across the gorge of a small stream near Nice, France, engineers saw that a central vertical support would clog the gorge. So they devised an unusual masonry arch support set at right angles to the span.
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Passing the 1,000 Foot Mark

HIGHER and higher soar the metropolitan skyscrapers as if aspiring to pierce the clouds and support the very heavens. The latest of these massive monoliths to rear its huge bulk on the New York skyline is the Empire State Building on Fifth Avenue at 34th Street. The claim is made for it that it is the tallest structure of any kind in the world. From the street to the roof of the 84th floor is 1043 feet, not including the observatory roof above this level or the mooring mast designed to extend 200 feet higher. There are 85 stories above 34th street arid two stories below the grade. The land and building are valued at $50,000,000.

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Your Own Inflatable Dome: Make It from a Kit

PS brings bubble buildings into the realm of the do-it-yourselfer: Take your choice of kits in three sizes—or start from scratch if you like By A. J. HAND / PS Home Workshop Editor

You’ve read about the new air-supported buildings that can cover hundreds of acres [PS, Mar. "73]. Now take a look at some pneumatics designed with you in mind. They’re inexpensive, easy to build, and adaptable to a whole range of uses.

The basic single-skin plastic dome, inflated by a small blower, can be used as a studio, greenhouse, pool cover, outdoor rec room, camping or vacation shelter, portable classroom, or storage facility.
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I love the fact that Frank Lloyd Wright called the air intakes he designed “nostrils”.

‘Golf Tees’ Support Roof of Windowless Office

Above you see no model of building of future, but the office of S. C. Johnson & Son, Racine, Wis. Two air intakes at top are called “nostrils” by architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. Skylights and unseen fixtures supply light in the windowless building.

Above, the circular “bird-cage” elevator. Radiant floors heat the building, steam pipes being laid under the four-inch concrete slab. Without a conventional front door, entrance is through a roofed-over auto driveway. Near by is a “carport” for parking, and on its roof a theater and a squash court.
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Sunlight Cast into Dark Rooms by Automatic Reflector

Several hours of sunlight can be cast into dark rooms of city apartments and hotels by means of an automatic reflector. The device follows the sun whenever it is visible, sets its mirrors to catch its rays and. then reflects them by a complicated series of prisms and mirrors to any 1,300-foot square area desired. The machine may be set up on the roof of an adjoining building to reflect the sunlight into rooms located on inside courts or perhaps on air shafts of large buildings.

Hillside House Hangs in Space

BY RUNNING a big arch right through the house, two young designer-contractors were able to build a home on a clifflike lot offering a magnificent view from the Hollywood hills, and yet avoid expensive foundation work. Inside, the arch forms the railing for a dining balcony that projects into the two-story living room.

The arch, made of laminated Douglas fir that was electronically glued, is the type Widely used to support the roofs of airplane hangars and warehouses. Only the living-room wing hangs on the arch. The rest of the house, designed by L. C. Guthrie, Jr. and R. O. Spencer, sits on a foundation.

Air Raid Shelter In Garden
THE beauties of a rock garden hide a reminder of war’s grimness. During the Sudeten scare of September, 1938, an English dentist constructed this concealed shelter from enemy bombers. It is ten feet long, three feet eight inches wide, and the walls are of solid concrete one foot six inches thick.

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Home on a Train

SOME hobbyists let their hobby occupy them night and day. Well, the reverse is true of Dr. John Payne Roberts. He occupies his hobby!

For Dr. Roberts and his wife make their home in an old railroad car which is a prize exhibit of the Museum of Transport, located in Kirkwood, on the western outskirts of St. Louis. The Museum contains a remarkable collection of old railroad equipment.
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Hurricane House Turns with Wind

WEATHER-VANE DWELLING DESIGNED FOR BOTH SAFETY AND COMFORT

By CARL WARDEN

WHEN raging storms whip across the land, accompanied by violent gales that uproot trees, tear the roofs from houses, and turn a trim countryside into a scene of desolation, there could probably be no safer refuge than the interior of a novel hurricane house designed by Edwin A. Koch, New York City architect. Streamline in the form of a mammoth teardrop, this amazing dwelling would revolve automatically to face into the oncoming storm, meeting it like the wing of an airplane and passing it smoothly around its curving sides toward its pointed tip. Read the rest of this entry »

Giant Truck Will Carry “Mail Order” House

For the delivery of complete prefabricated houses to all parts of the United States, a special tractor-trailer unit is planned. The trucking arrangement is intended to serve a house manufacturing company in which Alfred P. Sloan of General Motors and other industrialists are interested. According to plans, each of the 1,500 proposed vehicles will carry one complete house ready for assembly, two drivers, a master mechanic and a building supervisor. Sleeping accommodations above the seat will enable the crew to travel night and day, speeding up the movement from one site to another. Local labor will erect the houses, supervised by the crew from the factory or distribution point. The houses, which will be low-cost, modern residences, can be completely assembled, ready for occupancy, in two weeks.

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Tricks of the House-Wreckers

by ALFRED ALBELL

Have you ever watched a huge factory chimney being leveled to earth with a charge of dynamite? If you have, you will have wondered how the wrecking crew was able to make sure in advance that the shattered chimney would fall to the ground in a spot where it would miss adjacent buildings. The trade of house-wrecking has its full complement of tricks which are explained in this fascinating article by Mr. Albelli.
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