Guggenheim Face Lift

[pharding]

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2007/ ... aphic.html

[LikaComet]

Hey there Mr. Harding...

From what I see on the image that you referred to the checking could be viewed as normal surface aging. Control joints wouldn't help that .005 checking.



I wonder if there are structural concerns?



Brings to mind Fallingwater. Those cracks were structural. By the way...have you heard how the cable fix on Fallingwater is holding up? (No pun intended.)[/i]

[pharding]

I would not be surprised if they decided to cut control joints into concrete. One could cut them in and fill them with a 2-part high performance sealant. The control joints would be not be highly visible that way. The challenge is that high performance sealants are slightly tacky and dirt sticks to the sealant which makes them darker with time. The cracks themselves will most likely be injected with epoxy. If they don't cut in control joints the cracks will just reappear in another place nearby. It will be interesting to see what the architects and engineers come up with.



The above term control joints is in error. I should have said expansion joints.

[LikaComet]

But Mr. Harding...

Don't you see these small cracks as surface crazing? Aren't control joints used for deeper structural shifting of larger segments? Or is there actual movement of sections of His lovely spiraled ramps?



Respectfully, DougY.

[pharding]

I agree with what you are saying. I used the term control joints incorrectly. For example expansion joints are used in the exterior of a masonry wall. When brick gets wet it expands. Expansion joints absorb that expansion and contraction. Expansion and contraction can also occur when materials heat and cool. Control joints generally for building settlement. The article mentions expansion joints. I misspoke in using the term control joints in my earlier post. Thank you for pointing that out.



I would tend to believe that the cracks are attributable to expansion and contraction because of the patterns that you see in the drawing. More are clustered at the porte cochere which has exposure on multiple sides, including the bottom.

[LikaComet]

I'm working with a concrete floor in a cottage that I'm building for myself in Maryland. I have some surface crazing problems that I hope will be addressed when I use a cementatious paint to lend color and cover any surface issues. The floor has been something of a fiasco but every problem provides an oppurtunity for a creative solution, wouldn't you say Mr. Harding?



We touched upon the subject of Fallingwater earlier on. Has there been any word on Fallingwater's "teething" problems?

[DRN]

I find the patterns in the crack map fascinating. Some of the larger cracks appear to correspond to the interior walls perpendicular to the outer walls, other large cracks occur at major building offsets, and the smallest and tightest of them seem to delineate the grid of the reinforcing within the parapets/walls.



It would be interesting to hear how these cracks are interpreted by the engineers engaged in the restoration, or indeed how these cracks correspond to similar structures of the period. There aren't many comparables except for other Wright structures and parking or highway structures.

[JimM]

I'm no concrete expert, but my understanding is that the museum would have been cost prohibitive to do the monolithic structure Wright intended. Instead, the exterior walls of the ramp (at least) are sprayed on gunnite, and separate from the poured ramp.



Would that not make the bulk of the concern cosmetic rather than structural, since the facade is actually applied as a surface over the structure? And could that be the only reason the building is considered "sound"?



Otherwise, I imagine we would be hearing about the millions of dollars needed to correct another "flawed" Wright building!

[Deke]

I was in NYC a couple weeks ago and stopped by the G. My observations: 1) they've made a lot of changes since my last visit 10 years ago incluing an expande gift shop and the newly opened cafe 2) the naked concrete, free of paint, is what the structure must have looked like under construction. 3) the scaffolding they've erected is substantial and clearly intended to be there for a while.



This building, Fallingwater, and Price Tower all share FLW's strange obsession with reinforced concrete. Each could have been built better with steel frame construction.



dk

[LikaComet]

Are there any images of the Gugi and it's attendant scaffolding?

[Raymond Vincent Edwards]

These are two separate structural problems; Gugenheim , the walls were poured in plywood forms, giving it the imprint of the plywood sheets . All concrete is a chemical reaction, that gives off heat, just like baking a cake. Hoover Dam because of it's mass had to have cold water pipes installed to prevent major fractures, and is still curing(baking) IT IS NOT PAINTED! The Gugenheim probably was barely cured (most of the heat dissapated) but in 1959 the paint applied was probably lead based(this is speculative on my part) any lead based paint would probably have sealed in and prevented any further dissapation in the continuous curing process. Thus causing the crackling effect. A speculative solution to the problem would be to spackle the exterior cracks with latex based ceramic tile glue. Then a new coat of latex based paint that may occaisionally peel and need retouching as it gets baked , but will allow the dissapation of the curing process, without eventually turning the Gugenheim back into baked LIME. The same may be true for Fallingwater; BUT: I Blame that failure at Fallingwater on the mismanagement of W.P.C. . Using it like a cash cow! When I first visited when it was first open to the public; Docent led tours of no more than 12 people, all kids accompanied by adults,no one under thirteen; I went back a decade later to find screaming hoards of youthfull tourists , competing with each other ,on the balconies and parapets, jumping up and down trying to see how much deflection of the cantilevers they could cause ! IT HAD NEVER BEEN DESIGNED WITH THOSE KINDS OF LIVE LOADS IN MIND! I have heard they have learned the lesson the hard way, and W.P.C. has gone back to Docent limited number tours!

[Mobius]

Concrete is quite literally, born to crack.



I once spent a very wonderful afternoon grilling New Zealand's foremost concrete specialist Peter Fell (Who convinced me to avoid having an all-ground and polished concrete floor in the home) who graciously answered any and every question of mine.



It seems concrete cracks. All of it. In time.



The only question is, "when will it crack?" Will it be in the first 2 days, the first 2 weeks, 2 months, 2 years, or will it crack n 200 years?



To me, this surface cracking doesn't sound like a structural issue, just aging concrete doing what all concrete eventually does.



It's great they're taking it seriously though.



The Guggenheim is the only FLW building I have ever been in - and I knew nothing of Frank when I visited at age 17. I must confess, I was literally blown away by the building, and wasn't the slightest interested in its contents - even though at the time there was a permanent Picasso exhibition and a number of fantastic Kandinskys too!



I wanted to bring my skateboard along, and get my culture at 20 mph round the ramp! In fact, my sister recalled me saying this, and just recently sent me a cartoon of a skateboarder doing about 40 mph out the front door of the Gug'. Hehe.

[tom3]

The link below contains a couple photos I took last September of the Guggenheim with it's scaffolding







http://groups.msn.com/Architecturalphot ... ?Page=Last

[Raymond Vincent Edwards]

To the best of my knowledge , there has been no similar major concrete, flaws in the S.C. Johnson Admin. building , I suspect it is because the concrete "T" collumns , are hollow , and not painted inside, thus allowing for long period heat curing to naturally vent out. Likewise with Price Tower ; the underside of the apartment floor slabs , had suspended and plastered over ceilings; plus the pinwheel upright slabs wrap around the elevator shafts, allowing for curing heat to be conducted up the shafts. I doubt if the inside of the elevator shafts were painted!

[Rood]

To the best of my knowledge , there has been no similar major concrete, flaws in the S.C. Johnson Admin. building , I suspect it is because the concrete "T" collumns , are hollow , and not painted inside, thus allowing for long period heat curing to naturally vent out.

Today, while reading long "dead" threads, I couldn't help but notice the above remark ... asserting that the Johnson Wax columns are "hollow". It's true the columns were designed to be hollow, but WWPeters once said that the workmen had such difficulty removing the inner forms from the first few columns that most of them were ultimately poured solid. It would be interesting to know which columns are and which aren't hollow, and which columns (if any) ultimately had "similar major concrete, flaws".