Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-02-16

would partially replace the automobile as o.
means Of locomotion.
And It would be quite possible for man
TO spend his entire lifetime in normal everyday
activity. without once going outside Of the
building IN which he was born for grade
schools, high schools and colleges could be
given space on the various floors Of these
I,5OO-foot giants
A RCH1TECTS have discovered recently that
there Is almost no limit to the heights
they can build, as far as engineering considers
lions alone are concerned.
To be sure, the higher building rises, the
greater are the problems, the greater Is the
need for extreme strength and solidity. A high
wind can exert q simply unbelievable pressure
ON 75-stOry building. Nevertheless, this prob
lem-Of strength, rigidity, safety--is not the
one that Is worrying the architects.
The mere matter Of elevators to serve high
buildings Is great problem. Exhaustive tests
undertaken by New York architects have
demonstrated that under present conditions IS
stories Is just about the economic limit for
any building. Beyond that height the amount
Of space that must be given over to elevator
shafts becomes so great that the owners in
come diminishes.
: Yet this, too. is problem which can prob
ably be surmounted. Already the elevator
manufacturers are proposing to run two inde-
pendentIy operated cars in the same shaft.
Their scheme works like this:
In 40-story building for example, car
starts at the ground level and runs express
to the twentieth floor. From this point it
continues to the fortieth floor as local. Mean
while, right beneath 1t, is another car oper-
ating as local between the ground floor and
the twentieth floor. Thus one elevator shaft
is made to do the work Of two:
ELEVATOR manufacturers say that this
na1Rn Dc
safety devices which would prevent the two
cars from colliding at any time would be no
more complicated than the devices which now
prevent an elevator from colliding with the
top or bottom of its own shaft Some architects
believe that this principle can be expanded,
so that three or four elevators can use the
same shaft. If this can be done, one of the
great arguments against any further increase
in the height Of building viii be knocked down.
But. granted that q building can be pushed
up to $500 feet safely, and can be given
elevator service that win make it q paying
proposition. how about outside trafhc? win
not such skyscfaper. by concentrating $4,000
or more people ON one city block, make auto
mobile, street car and subway trafnc in that
vicinity unbearably crowded?
The architects are devoting themselves to
this problem right now. For one thing, they
point out that one Of these self-sufhcient sky
scraperS with homes. schools, ofaceS churches
and theaterS under the same roof would not
contribute much 70 street traffc congestion,
for the simple reason that the majority Of its
residents would not 60 out ON the street at
all on most days. They would not need to;
everything that they wanted could be obtained
In their own building.
Then, too, some architects are banking on
another Of the miracles OF this fast-moving
modern age-the airplane.
THE strangest most breath taking buildings
ever designed, probably are some buildings
that students Of the Beaux Arts Institute of
Design in New York recently sketched in a
competition for the best means of providing
airplane landing fields in metropolis
The prize winner showed feature that these
city mountains of the future very likely win in
clude.
:. He. selected four city blocks as the units for