architecture – Page 3 – Geeky Girl Engineer

Albany, New York

Posted on June 25, 2018 by geek

I am visiting Albany for the day, and I spent the day wandering around downtown after I visited the state capitol. The area around the Capitol, Empire Plaza, was built during Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s term, and he evidently micromanaged the design. It is very modern architecture, and it is in complete contrast to the Capitol. The Empire Plaza is fun to photograph because of all the interesting lines of the buildings. The four identical Agency Towers provide repetitive vertical lines, but then The Egg is a weird curved structure. The Corning Tower in the Empire Plaza is the tallest building in the city and has an observation floor, which has outstanding views of the area. Away from the Empire Plaza, the rest of downtown Albany is a mix of historic buildings and some modern buildings. Also, Albany is right on the Hudson River, and a park on the river has nice views of the river.

Empire State Plaza

Agency Buildings 1-4

Agency Buildings

Erastus Corning II Tower

The Egg

Downtown Albany

Albany City Hall

D & H Building (SUNY)

Corning City Preserve

Jennings Landing

View from the Erastus Corning II Tower

New York State Capitol

Posted on June 25, 2018 by geek

I spent the day wandering around Albany today, and I started the day off with a tour of the Capitol. The New York Capitol is gorgeous. According to the tour guide, it was way over budget and way behind schedule when then Governor Teddy Roosevelt finally said, it’s done, no more. The guide pointed out some stone that was never carved because of that. The stone work is amazing none the less. There are numerous different stones used, and it is all exquisite.

From the outside, the building is beautiful, even without the domed tower it was supposed to have. I lost count of how many different architects the building had, but the style of the building is different in various areas because of that.

New York Capitol

The Senate Chamber is gorgeous with gold paneling and beautiful marble tiles on the walls. My favorite part of it is that the chamber has two fireplaces that haven’t been used in decades since the building got central heat and air. Because of the acoustics in the chamber, it is hard to have a private conversation, so the two fireplaces are called “whispering fireplaces” where senators can have private conversation. They even keep folding chairs in the fireplaces for this activity. I find this hilarious. Even better, I noticed a fire extinguisher next to one of the fireplaces. Is it for heated political arguments?

Senate Chamber

The whispering fireplaces in the Senate Chamber where senators can have a private conversation.

The Assembly Chamber is not as exquisite as the Senate Chamber, but it is pretty also. According to the guide, the current ceiling in the room is the third one. The first one kept cracking and falling apart to the degree that large stones fell onto the ground. Then the second version was mainly papier-mache and wood. It was supposed to be solid wood, but such bad, vague specifications were written into the contract that the builder substituted papier-mache. At some point after this when the legislatures discovered this they sued, but they lost in court because the specifications were so bad. There is a lesson to be learned there. The paper-mache ended up saving the room during a fire in 1911. This is now the third ceiling, (I wasn’t clear on this) built after the fire.

Assembly Chamber

The hallways and the staircases are some of the most beautiful areas of the building. The Great Western staircase is so beautiful that my photos cannot do it justice.

Upper Senate Corridor

Great Western Staircase

Assembly Staircase

Senate Staircase

Senate Elevator

Governor’s Reception Room

Hall of Governors

Tower of London

Posted on May 26, 2018 by geek

As part of my trip to London, I felt I needed to see the Tower of London. I kind of wanted to see the grounds, and I really wanted to see the ravens. I saw the crown jewels. They were pretty and extremely expensive looking. I skipped the battlements. Really, I just wanted to look around, and I wanted to find the ravens. Funny thing was, just walking around, I really couldn’t help but think how times have changed. This used to be a grand royal residence, but it also used to be a prison. They used to torture people there. They executed people there. Now it is a beautiful place with fascinating old architecture. People like me pay money to see it. Hundreds of years ago, part of it was the last place some people wanted to be, and the other part of it, the lower class of people would never be admitted. However, it is presented as a place where we can and should learn from history.

Traitors’ gate

The inner wall of the Tower

The White Tower

Innermost ward

Queen’s House and Tower Green

Raven sitting a window

Waterloo Block

The White Tower

Tower Bridge

Posted on May 25, 2018 by geek

I love bridges, so while in London I am visiting as many bridges as possible (although there are quite a few). One bridge that was on my must see list was the iconic Tower Bridge. It is a beautiful bridge. Even better though, you can tour the historic engine room and also go to the top and walk across the upper level walkways that connect the two towers.

Tower Bridge

South tower

Inside the engine room areas, you can see the historic coal burners, steam engines, and the accumulators. The bridge now operates with electricity.

Coal burner

Steam engine

Accumulators

In the south tower, you can see the inside of the tower and all the structural components. They have human figures up in the structure to demonstrate how it was built.

View inside the south tower, looking up

Both the east and west upper walkways have a segment of glass floor, so you can look down onto the river and roadway.

Looking to the road from glass floor of upper level walkway

The views from the upper walkways are wonderful. You can see very far up and down the River Thames.

East view from upper walkway

West view from upper walkway

Chicago

Posted on September 1, 2017 by geek

I’ve never been to Chicago before until I did extended layovers between train rides out west and back. Chicago is a pretty neat city. It has a nice mix of old and new buildings. At least one really neat park. [There are probably more, but I didn’t get to them.] It also has a really nice riverwalk along parts of the Chicago River. It is definitely a city that I need to get back to and explore more. Note to any engineers or geeks reading this: If you are in Chicago, go see the historic water tower. It is a gorgeous building that was built to house a standpipe. Across the street is a pumping station in an equally gorgeous building. You can actually go into the pumping station and walk along a small portion of a balcony to see the pipes and pumps.

Jay Pritzker Pavilion

The “L” goes by a downtown office building

Floating gardens on the river walk

On the river walk underneath a bridge

River walk

Historic water tower near the John Hancock Building

Historic water tower

Pumping station building across from the water tower

Inside the pumping station building

Oak Street Beach

Buckingham Fountain

Rapid City

Posted on August 29, 2017 by geek

I spent a total of five days in the Rapid City area, but I barely spent any time in Rapid City itself. The last day I was there, I spent a little bit of time wandering around downtown Rapid City. It is a rather cute town. I have clear preferences in towns. I like towns that still have some of their old buildings, and Rapid City does. It also has some new art and a town square of sorts. On several street corners, there are statues of various Presidents, presumably with keeping with the theme set by Mt. Rushmore. Most unique, it has an art alley, where people can paint the backs of buildings and evidently everything else in the alley that doesn’t generally move. Permits are required for the painting, which is a rather interesting touch considering some of it looks like graffiti.

Downtown Rapid City

Town square of sorts that kids clearly like

Art Alley

Statues of Presidents on most corners

Cheyenne

Posted on August 21, 2017 by geek

I spent the night in Colorado, and then it was time to head off to Nebraska to prepare for the eclipse. I stopped in Cheyenne along the way. My initial intention was to walk around a little and see the Cheyenne Depot because I love trains. They also just happened to have an arts festival going on right when so many people were traveling through for the eclipse. Kudos to Cheyenne for timing their arts festival with a day of so much traffic. In any event, Cheyenne is a cute town with many old buildings that are neat to see.

I took a photo of this building, not because it is old because it clearly is not. However I was really impressed with how they made one big parking garage look like several buildings that would fit the architecture of downtown.

Chicago Architecture River Cruise

Posted on August 20, 2017 by geek

I’m traveling to the west for the solar eclipse and vacation, and I decided to take the train. I had to change trains in Chicago, so I decided to spend the night and have some time to explore Chicago. I decided to start with a river cruise focusing on the architecture. Like most old and big cities, Chicago has a lovely mix of old and new buildings. It has classic old stone buildings, modern buildings (as in the modern architecture era), post-modern buildings, and whatever era we are in now. I am also curious about the engineering that must have gone into many of the buildings as they were built right on the river’s banks. A cruise on its rivers is a great way to see some of them. A few photos I took are below.

Hive DC

Posted on August 5, 2017 by geek

Every year during the summer, the National Building Museum has a summer block party. They have had the Big Maze, the Beach, and last year Icebergs. This year is Hive DC. They used nearly 3,000 wound paper tubes that are normally used for pouring concrete in construction. Unlike at any construction site I have ever seen, these tubes were painted metallic silver on the outside and hot pink on the inside. The tubes were stacked and notched to allow interlocking. In a few places at least, it was evident they needed some reinforcement with screws and nuts and some tension wires for the highest hive. There is a xylophone in a small hive which appears to be made almost exclusively with construction material like tubing, canisters, and pipes. If nothing else, Hive is fantastic to photograph. There were so many cool angles, lines, and perspectives that were just plain fun to photograph.

Hive DC

Second largest hive

Largest hive

Hive DC

Xylophone

Hive DC

Largest hive

Hive DC

DSNY Manhattan 1/2/5 Sanitation Garage

Posted on July 22, 2017 by geek

A few weeks ago, I got a chance to visit the brand new DSNY Manhattan 1/2/5 Sanitation Garage with Open House New York. The multilevel building houses three different garages, one each for Manhattan districts 1, 2, and 5. Each garage has its own floor, and there is a shared area for vehicle repairs. The building has LEED certification and includes many green features including a wonderful green roof also. Across the street is a salt shed built to resemble salt crystals. Both the garage and salt shed have really nice, innovative architecture.

DSNY Manhattan 1/2/5 Garage on left, salt shed on right, with Holland Tunnel ventilation tower in back

Salt shed

View of garage from salt shed, all floors of garage are different colors to emphasize different garages and functions

Slats in gate turned to spell DSNY

View from office area looking south, metal fins help let daylight in but keep building cool. The Statue of Liberty can barely be seen on the far right in far background.