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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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Biggest Post Office TO BE BUILT IN CHICAGO

CHICAGO is to have the largest post office in the world. The fifty-acre, twelve-story building will be completed and ready for occupancy within about a year and a half, according to a recent announcement of the United States Post Office Department. It will be able to care for the 19,000.000 letters a day expected by 1943, in addition to the parcel post packages and newspapers. Read the rest of this entry »

Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright no less.

First All-Glass Building Soon to Rise in City of New York

FROM designing the Imperial Hotel in Tokio, Japan—the only structure of any importance that stood up under the earthquake a few years back—to building the first all-glass house in the heart of New York City is a pretty long step. But it is being taken by Frank Lloyd Wright, world-famed architect, who proposes to erect a building along the lines of that shown in the illustration, at Second Avenue and 11th Street. It is the first of several that Mr. Wright plans to build within the next few years.
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Pleasure-Tower Half Mile High

Towering almost half a mile above the ground, dwarfing such gigantic structures as the Empire State Building and the Eiffel tower, a huge concrete tower 2300 feet high, surmounted with a beacon and built with a spiral ramp for autos to climb up its sides, stuns the imagination with its vastness. It is the design of the French engineer, M. Freyssinet, intended for the 1937 Paris Exhibition. Read the rest of this entry »

This would be cool. When I was a kid, I loved looking through the cracks in the wall to watch the construction on new buildings.

Windows in Builders’ Fence Permit Public to Watch
Recognizing the interest which the public takes in watching others work, a construction company built windows into the fence around the job on which its employes were working recently. The windows permit passers-by to watch, in complete safety.

I’d say these people drastically underestimate the power of a hurricane.

TIED DOWN HOUSE IS HURRICANE PROOF
Even the force of a hurricane will not unroof the house of one Florida home owner, or sweep it from its foundations, for the house is tied down. After witnessing the disastrous experiences of some of his neighbors in wind storms, this man passed steel cables over his roof and anchored their ends securely in the ground. Turnbuckles provided a means of taking up the slack in the cables and making them taut. The photograph above shows the owner putting the finishing touches to his installation.

Giant Figure of Christ in Odd Church Design

Patents have been issued for an odd architectural design for churches. The plan calls for a giant figure of Christ, to be constructed of burnished copper, which would dominate the church building made of cement in natural stone color. The design has Christ seated on a rock at Gethsemane, with the church entrance in the rock, beneath the flowing robes of the figure. A halo for the figure and illumination for the entire structure would be provided by a system of floodlights.

TOURIST CAMP HAS CONCRETE “TEPEES”

Cleverly constructed to look like a small Indian village, a novel tourist camp near Lawrence, Kans., has concrete shelters closely resembling Indian tepees. Cement stucco, laid over wire mesh on a foundation of three slantingpoles, forms the walls of the odd overnight cabins. Each “tepee” is equipped with comfortable beds, running hot and cold water, cooking stove, and other conveniences.

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KEEPING AHEAD of the JONSES

ONE sure sign of spring is that annual urge to “do something” about the house and furniture.

Perhaps it’s because we stay at home more in the cold season and get a bit tired of looking at the same walls, floors and furnishings. Whatever the reason, the recent growing demand for change in the home has stimulated the invention and manufacture of more and different furnishings, gadgets and building materials than ever. Hundreds of these innovations will be found in your favorite department store, furniture showroom or building supply house this spring with possibly one exception, and this exception is likely to produce the greatest change of all in the home when it is ready for market. Read the rest of this entry »