Survival City: Part II

Seventeen years ago I posted about Tom Vanderbilt's Survival City: Adventures among the Ruins of Atomic America (Princeton Architectural Press, 2002). Last week a family journey to see my great-aunt Carol in Edmore, North Dakota provided the opportunity to check on the former Stanley R. Mickelsen Safeguard Complex on County Road 26, across from Nekoma. To the North, one sees the former complex; to the South, one sees the North Prairie Ag (Nekoma / Osnabrock) grain elevator. 

Combining season experienced delays this year due to weather conditions. When I arrived, teams of combiners were rapidly working the fields in advance of anticipated frost. North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring recently delivered a 'doom and gloom' outlook for the state's farmers. 

Various news agencies have reported that Bitzero acquired the Safeguard property for use as a cryptomining data center. Its adjacent property is for sale. Rusty signage warns trespassers will be shot, survivors will be shot again.

Image aboves: Stanley R. Mickelsen Safeguard Complex, County Road 26, North Dakota; North Prairie Ag (Nekoma/Osnabrock) grain elevator, Nekoma, North Dakota, as photographed 09.30.2025 by K. Rylance.

Experimental Silos

In 1909, University of Nebraska graduate Claude Harrison Hinman (1879-1967) began teaching classes for Kansas Agricultural College Farmers' Institute. Traveling along the Santa Fe Railroad and communicating from a boxcar, Hinman lectured to regional farmers as part of the institution's "dairy train."(1) He assisted Professor J. Kendall with an experimental silo comprised of staves and a thin cement wall.(2)

E.H. Webster, then director of the Kansas Experiment Station, heralded cylindrical silos over their rectangular predecessors, claiming that the latter resulted in spoilage.(3) The college promoted silo construction in various extension services.  Hinman wrote a substantial bulletin devoted to the topic and the Extension Department mailed it without charge to anyone who was a member of a farmers' institute. In addition, the college offered Hinman's expertise to any farmer willing to cover his railroad ticket and lodging. Thus, Hinman helped to erect silos in Augusta, Herington, Hiattville, Linwood, Mulvane, Tonganoxie and Wellington. These were chiefly comprised of plastered cement or concrete on metal lath, a type that had first been developed by the United States Department of Agriculture (below).(4)

During the 19-teens, Hinman moved to Colorado and established a commercial silo operation. The Hinman Silo Company had its earliest offices on Champa Street in downtown Denver. Catering to wealthier farmers, Hinman sold vitrified hollow tile and salt-glazed tile silos. He also offered barn plans. The business seems to have flourished until the Great Depression, when the Hinmans relocated to Mesa.

One of my favorite experimental silos is the Peavey-Haglin, located in metropolitan Minneapolis, Minnesota and listed on the National Register.

(1)"Now a Dairy Train." Emporia Gazette (15 October 1909).

(2)"Local Notes." The Kansas Industrialist 36:24  (23 April 1910).

(3)"Rectangular Silos Fail." The Kansas Industrialist 37:14 (7 January 1911).

(4)Prof. G.C. Wheeler. "The Concrete-Metal Silo Is Satisfactory to Kansas Farmers." Emporia Gazette (17 March 1911).

Images:  "The Perfect Silo." Western Farm Life XIX:3 (1 February 1917) and C.H. Hinman, photographer. "Plastered Cement on Metal Lath Silo in Process of construction" as it appears in H.E. Dvorachek. "Silos and Silage in Colorado." Colorado Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletin 200 (August 1914).

New Orleans Public Health (1859)

In the summer of 1859, The Daily Picayune suggested improving the City's public health by raising structures above the ground and covering the earth with concrete or brick:

"Much improvement in the health of New Orleans doubtless might be accomplished by greater attention to the condition of the earth beneath the buildings which are erected. For many years, at least, the cheaply constructed tenant houses have been erected without any attempt to prevent the possibility of pools of water standing most of the season beneath the floors. Even in the heart of the city the floors of the most expensive warehouses and stores are laid within a few inches of the soil, preventing the possibility of any ventilation, and establishing immediately the process of decay.

"A soil which constantly is saturated with water, or which is loose and spongy, containing much inorganic matter is much less favorable to health than that which is dry, porous or gravelly. The former, made under the heat of a torrid sun, will constantly emit exhalations of a noxious character, and it should be the subject of architects to neutralize or obviate, by the manner of building, the natural moisture of such localities.

"This is the nature of the soil of New Orleans, and the general flatness of the surface of the ground on which it is built increases the danger and the necessity of measures to remove it. When good drainage cannot be effected, the earth beneath all edifices built here should not only be raised above the general level, but it should be entirely covered with solid concrete. This alone will prevent constant exhalations in the summer time of impure air, and a speedy decay of the wood in the neighborhood of the foundation. How much a change in the old mode of building would improve public health those alone can fully appreciate who have visited habitations whose lower floors rest on the earth beneath even the present level of the streets. The mouldiness of the walls, the damp, sickly odor which pervades them, and the impossibility of cleanliness, will instantly be perceived. Yet whole streets are constructed with this entire disregard of all sanitary ideas.

"We are so glad to see some indication of the recognition of the necessity of elevating the floors of our edifices, and preparing solid impermeable foundations. The splendid commercial temples lately erected on Carondelet Street, and the later structures on Camp, as well as many others in different quarters of the city, are at least two feet above the level of the sidewalk, while the whole area over which they have been built, has been covered with brick and grouted.

"The most cursory examination of these buildings will show how much more attractive, as places of business, they are than those whose floors are embedded in the earth. It is also true that much less damage will result to goods of a perishable nature in our climate in the former than in the latter class of buildings.

"It is the true policy, then, not only as a means of improving public health, but enhancing the value of improved property to adopt the later style of building, of which we have cited several examples.

"This change in the mode of buildings is so important that we cannot but regard it worthy of some legislation on the part of the Council. Certainly it is quite as necessary to regard what concerns the health of the city as that which has reference to the lines of the streets."


Excerpt from:

"Improvement in Building."  The Daily Picayune 20 August 1859. As viewed in ProQuest Civil War Era Database.

Concrete & Steel (1946-50)

After World War II, there was a considerable amount of experimentation with building materials. Industrial plants that had been mobilized for war were converted to fuel the high demands for affordable residential architecture. Various commercial enterprises sought to capitalize on federal incentive packages.

For example, Andrew J. Higgins built a Thermo-namel demonstration house at his Industrial Canal plant in 1946 (shown above). Utilizing a technique developed by Oakland, California architect Maury I. Diggs, Higgins boasted that his "package homes" could be customized for any floor plan or color scheme. As we have mentioned in previous posts, a national steel shortage forced Higgins to abandon Thermo-namel and to develop Thermo-Con. 

Higgins resided in one of two Thermo-Con demonstration homes (constructed 1947) located at the intersection of Havana Street and North Broad Avenue (Sanborn Atlas 1963 image shown above), until his grander cellular concrete home was completed in the Lake Vista neighborhood in 1949.

Gunnison Homes, a subsidiary of U.S. Steel, developed porcelain-enameled steel prefabricated residences after the war. The Champion, shown above, was its low-cost model. Introduced in metropolitan New Orleans in 1949, the model was available in two sizes and multiple colors. Authorized dealer J. Burrows Johnson opened a demonstration home at 2811 Hamilton Street,situated in a neighborhood that came to feature a number of steel residences. The house is no longer extant.

Olin J. Farnsworth, who owned the Lustron franchise in New Orleans, opened his demonstration house in May 1949 at 3700 Cherry Street. The "surf blue" Westchester was outfitted with furnishings supplied by Kirschman's and was quickly joined by its De Luxe twin at number 3704 (Sanborn Atlas image above, 1961).

Between 1949 and 1950, Farnsworth built a number of Lustron Westchesters in the Crescent City.(1) He apparently utilized Lustron for a double bungalow, located at 9412-9414 Stroelitz (Sanborn Atlas image above, 1961). New Orleans architect and educator George A. Saunders briefly lived in the rear unit while teaching courses at Tulane University. Saunders worked for Bolt and Beranek, who served as acoustical consultants to Lustron.(2)

Baton Rouge also had its post-war neighborhoods. A large number of concrete block residences were built on Carleton Drive and North 39th Street between 1946 and 1947 (Sanborn Atlas image above, 1963). These typically included steel joists, flat roofs, curved facade elements and small carports. Many of these remain with minor modifications.

Historic Sanborn fire insurance atlases can help make the process of identifying new building materials easier. Lustrons, constructed of prefabricated steel frames and sheathing, appear as solid grey masses on historic Sanborns; Thermo-Cons, cast of cellular concrete on site, appear as gold masses marked "fire-proof." Concrete block structures are frequently indicated in blue with the abbreviation "C.B." and steel- and iron-clad frame structures typically have yellow centers with grey surrounds.

(1)These included:

Lustron Model Home, 3700 Cherry Street [Westchester model, surf blue, 1949]
3704 Cherry Street [Westchester model, 1949]
Joseph Gibson Residence, 3623 Livingston Street [Westchester model, 1949]
3629 Livingston Street [Westchester model, maize yellow, 1949]
3635 Livingston Street [Westchester model, 1949]
Julius Reese Residence, 4940 St. Roch Street [Westchester model, surf blue, c. 1949-50]
Merrill Ferrara Residence, 4969 St. Roch Street [Westchester model, c. 1949-50]
Stroelitz Double (?), 9412-9414 Stroelitz Street [Circa 1949-50]
John Warren Residence, 57 Egret Street [1950]
James T. Skelly Residence, 26 Bluebird Street [Westchester model, 1950]
Robert Smith Residence, 57 West Park Place [Westchester model, 1950]
128 Central Park Place [Westchester model, surf blue, 1950]

(2)Early Lustron owners complained about structure-borne and air-borne noise, and the company sought possible solutions from Bolt and Beranek.

Images above: "RFC Authorizes $9,000,000 Loan to Higgins for House Materials." The Times-Picayune 11 February 1947.

Square 1723. New Orleans. Sanborn Atlas. 1963.Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

"Champion Model." Gunnison Homes Catalog 1950.  As viewed 18 Mary 2015. URL: https://www.flickr.com/photos/jenosale/sets/72157627624319138/

Square 601. 1961 sheet. New Orleans. Sanborn Atlas. Corrected to 1963. Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Square 567.  1961 sheet. New Orleans. Sanborn Atlas. Corrected to 1963. Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Squares 11 & 17. Baton Rouge. Sanborn Atlas. Corrected to 1963. Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

WTC: Concrete's Poster Child

As Edward D. Stone's International Trade Center and Curtis & Davis' Exhibition Center (Rivergate) neared completion, the Portland Cement Association featured the structures in its Fortune magazine advertisements. Utilizing an illustration by poster artist Bob Peak (1927-92), Portland's copywriters stressed that concrete made good "business sense."

"Concrete gives a world trade center built-in sales appeal. The buildings of New Orleans' new International Trade Center are designed to serve the buyers and sellers of merchandise from every corner of the world. Here, through the imaginative use of concrete, is expressed the very spirit and pace of modern-day trade. In the Convention-Exhibition building, the New Orleans architects used a concrete barrel shell roof to create striking beauty, as well as an interior clear span of 225 feet, sufficient to seat 17,600 people. Textured exterior concrete walls provide tasteful concrete throughout. The highly compressible qualities of New Orleans' soils were mastered by prestressed concrete piles, providing firm foundations for the light but strong reinforced concrete frame and floors designed by advanced new structural criteria. Gleaming exterior curtain wall panels of precast concrete assure visual interest."

Image above: Bob Peak, illustrator for Portland Cement Association. "Concrete Gives a World Trade..." Promotional flyer. [Published in Fortune July 1965].  Architectural Trade Catalogs, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

From Oakland to New Orleans

In February 1946, Andrew Jackson Higgins, Jr. announced to Dallas businessman his latest venture, the development of an inexpensive solution to America's post-War housing shortage. Invented by Oakland, California architect Maury I. Diggs (1886-1953) in 1941, the ferro-enamel product could be utilized to build a house in three days for as little as $3,000. Higgins' research department further experimented with the product, trademarking it as Thermo-namel. The heat-fused porcelain enamel could be shipped to a building site and erected on a standard foundation. Thermo-namel sheets of equivalent size were then spaced apart to form a wall.  Once this sheathing was up, another Diggs innovation, a cellular concrete that Higgins trademarked "Thermo-con," was poured into the space between the Thermo-namel sheets.

Higgins claimed that Thermo-namel could be customized for any floor plan or color scheme, and that this flexibility would silence any objections to prefabricated construction. He felt his product could be used to build anything from garden furniture to skyscrapers. Seeking to attract Texas investors, he proclaimed the insulating Thermo-con to be "tornado-proof, earthquake-proof, dust-proof, vermin-proof and fireproof." Higgins hoped to build a $1 million plant in Dallas that would be exclusively geared towards providing affordable housing for veterans.

A national steel  shortage forced Higgins to abandon Thermo-namel and instead promote Thermo-con as the means of delivering homes to the masses. The earliest Thermo-con homes were built in New Orleans, designed by Sporl and Maxwell.

Read more:  "Higgins Proposes $3,000 Homes of Steel and Enamel." Dallas Morning News 14 February 1946.

Image above:  Designing for the Thermo-Con Cellular Concrete System. New Orleans: Higgins Inc. Thermo-Con Division, Undated. Circa 1950. Architectural Trade Catalogs, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries. Digitized via the Internet Archive's Building Technology Heritage Library.

Thermo-Con Cellular Concrete

We have mentioned in previous posts the role of Andrew Higgins in developing post-War building products geared towards affordable housing. This summer, the Association for Preservation Technology International is digitizing a sizable portion of the Southeastern Architectural Archive's trade catalogs, which include Higgins promotional materials.

Image above:  Cover.  Thermo-Con Division. Building with Thermo-Con Cellular Concrete. New Orleans: Higgins Inc. Circa 1948. Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries. View the full brochure via the Internet Archive's Building Technology Heritage Library.

Brickcrete Co-Op

Yesterday the University of Michigan announced its digitization of a scarce civil rights-era newsletter, the Selma Inter-Religious Project (1966-1969), now available online through the Hathi Trust Digital Library. Digitization required securing permission from the publisher, the Revered Francis X. Walker, now 81 years old and living in Tennessee. Walker initially developed the newsletter in hopes of drawing support for the civil rights movement, and reported on abuses and developments.

For those interested in the building trades, Walker reported on the establishment of a profit-making cooperative -- called HELP-COA -- outside of Camden (Wilcox County) Alabama:

Brickcrete on slab construction became popular in the early 1950s, and one finds advertisements for such residences in regional newspapers. Brickcrete was also produced in southeastern Louisiana and Mississippi. In New Orleans, the Holloway Construction Company built brickcrete houses under the name "Holloway Homes" and maintained a model home in Estelle Heights, Marrero, Louisiana.

Image above: Francis X. Walker. "To Serve this Development." Selma Inter-Religious Project (13 January 1969): p. 2.

To consult the newsletter online, click here.

Read more about the digitization project here.

Howard-Tilton Memorial Library Construction

In December 1968, Library Journal featured an article about Tulane University's new Howard-Tilton Memorial Library (construction progress photographs shown above). Designed by the New Orleans firm Nolan, Norman and Nolan with consulting assistance of Harvard University Librarian Keyes D. Metcalf (1889-1983), the building was the largest new library to be reported that year. Tulane received nearly $2 million in federal grants to support the $6.2 million project.(1)

LJ reported:

"BIG AS IT IS, Tulane's Howard-Tilton Memorial Library is only about one-half of its ultimate size. Part of its construction cost represents an investment in future expansion: foundations capable of bearing another four floors atop the first floor, plus an elevator shaft which is to be unused until the building grows.

Built on a 25-foot module, the building presents a massive and simply designed exterior, with both the ground and fourth floors completely walled in glass, and the rest of the building with concrete aggregate.

The new library is across the street from the old one, and already holds some 700,000 volumes, or 75 percent of the university's total collections. It took a wooden ramp and 11,271 book truck trips to make the move across the street."

Today, visitors to the library will have noticed that its entrance has been moved to the Freret Street facade in preparation for the construction of two additional floors. Keep abreast of the progress here.

(1) "Local Affairs." The Times-Picayune (11 June 1965): p. 1; "U.S. Fund Totaling $2,039,833 Approved for Three N.O. Universities." The Times-Picayune (22  June 1965): p. 20. Building cost was $5.5 million; equipment cost was $655,000.

Images above:  B. Samuels, photographer. Pile Driving. 2 September 1966; Form Setting. 1 February 1967; Concrete Pour. 8 May 1967. Nolan, Norman and Nolan Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Hydraulic Stone & Brick

The early twentieth century introduced many new building materials to the architecture profession. New Orleans architects Andry & Bendernagel and Francis J. MacDonnell adopted some of these new materials in the construction of religious buildings.

For the Ursulines Convent (top image), Andry & Bendernagel employed durable press-bricks developed by the Hydraulic-Press Brick Company of St. Louis, Missouri.  The company opened branch offices in Baltimore, Chicago, Cleveland, Davenport, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Minneapolis, New York, Omaha, Philadelphia, Toledo and Washington, D.C. It became especially renowned for its Hy-tex Brick, an affordable and durable face brick that was utilized on projects nationwide. Hy-tex was available in a wide variety of colors, textures and sizes and potential clients could select appropriate bricks in branch office "Exhibit Rooms" such as the one shown in the second image above.

For the St. Charles Avenue First Baptist Church (third image), Francis J. MacDonnell utilized the Ferguson System developed by the American Hydraulic Stone Company of Denver, Colorado. This was a two-piece system comprised of hollow concrete "stones" that could be fabricated on the building site with steel molds (bottom image). The company claimed that nine men working a ten-hour day could make the brick and assemble a one thousand square foot wall.

Images above:  First two:  Hydraulic Press-Brick Company. Genuine Economy in Home Building. St. Louis, MO, 1913.  Architectural Trade Catalogs, Southeastern Architectural Archive.

Second two: American Hydraulic Stone Company. Ferguson System Concrete Construction, Supplement to Catalog. Denver, CO. 1907. Martin Shepard Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive.

Unit Buildings Principle

In September 1951, Laurence G. Farrant (1921-1978), a Miami-based consulting engineer, published an article in Architectural Record pertaining to a new parking structure that he had helped to realize. Working with project engineer W.C. Harry and New Orleans architects Diboll-Kessels at the request of parking lot entrepreneur George Blaise, Farrant developed a flat-slab garage comprised of 30 independent structures with column supports hinged at the bottoms.

Influenced by the work of Swiss civil engineer Robert Maillart (1872-1940), Farrant developed the plan based on the "unit buildings" principle, which allowed overlapping cantilevers to accommodate additional automobiles. The hinged column bottoms allowed the independence of the separate building units, and also provided more space for automobiles. Ramps between levels were simply hung between unit buildings in a non-continuous placement in order to secure the unit buildings' independence. Farrant asserted that his scheme yielded considerable savings in the purchase of steel and concrete, for he was able to reduce the slab thickness over what would have been required for a single monolithic base.(1)

Click here to see more recent images of the structure.

(1) Laurence G. Farrant. "Parking Garage: Series of Unit Buildings." Architectural Record (September 1951): pp. 167-170; Laurence G. Farrant. "Unit Buildings Cut Construction Costs." Journal of the American Concrete Institute 47:5 (May 1951): pp. 669-679.

Images above:  Details, Laurence G. Farrant. Drawings for garage for Blaise, Inc., 200 North Rampart Street, New Orleans, LA. Diboll-Kessels and Associates, Architects. March 1950. Weiss, Dreyfous and Seiferth Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Kahn System

In March 1906, Asa J. Biggs (†1913); a Massachusetts Institute of Technology-trained engineer and principal in the New Orleans firm Mackenzie, Goldstein & Biggs; wrote an article for Architectural Art and Its Allies heralding a new reinforced-concrete building technique, the Kahn system. Invented by Julius Kahn and patented 18 August 1903 (Patent No. 736,602), the system featured rolled bars with diagonal "wings" bent up at regular intervals to prevent shear cracks in horizontal beams (see diagram on envelope below). Kahn's Detroit-based Trussed Concrete Steel Company manufactured and marketed the reinforcement system, and its structural engineers supplied builders with their services.

Frank Lloyd Wright employed the Kahn system in his Imperial Hotel (1913-23) in Tokyo.(1)  In New Orleans, Bemis Brothers' Gulf Bag Company building (329 Julia Street) was erected on 660 Raymond concrete piles, and its beams and floor slabs employed the Kahn system (1905-06).  This facilitated the builder's desire to span a clear space of 44 feet that would allow heavy bales of burlap cloth to be loaded and unloaded.(2) Edmund Burke Mason was the engineer in charge of construction for Bemis Brothers Bag Company of Boston, and supervised the construction of the Julia Street facility, as well as that of Bemis plants in San Francisco and St. Louis.(3)

(1) Joseph M. Siry. "The Architecture of Earthquake Resistance: Julius Kahn's Truscan Company and Frank Lloyd Wright's Imperial Hotel" Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 67:1 (March 2008): pp. 78-105.

(2) Asa J. Biggs. "A Re-Inforced Concrete Factory." Architectural Art and Its Allies (March 1906), pp. 13-14.

(3)John Smith Kendall. "Edmund Burke Mason." History of New Orleans, vol. 3. 1922. p. 946.

Images above: "Gulf Bag Company Building." Architectural Art and Its Allies (March 1906), p. 13; Trussed Concrete Steel Company envelope, 1909. "Louisiana Printing Co.," Martin Shepard Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Mushroom System II

We had posted an earlier entry regarding the use of C.A.P. Turner's so-called "Mushroom System" in the construction of the New Orleans Johns-Manville Building (1914). One year earlier, architect Emile Weil (1878-1945)  was touted as employing the method for the "Most Up-to-Date Wholesale House in New Orleans," his Woodward-Wight building (344 St. Joseph Street). The construction photograph reproduced above appeared in the January 1913 issue of Architectural Art and Its Allies, a local architecture/building journal.

Image above: "The Mushroom System of Reinforced Concrete." Architectural Art and Its Allies (January 1913), p. 20.  Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Field Trip: Oscar-Zero

North of Cooperstown, North Dakota on Highway 45 in Griggs County there sits the Oscar-Zero Missile Alert Facility that was once manned by members of the United States Air Force's 321st Missile Wing. Prescribing to George Washington's words that "to be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace," the missileers trained daily for a job they hoped they would never perform. . . releasing the country's arsenal of Minuteman missiles.

Decommissioned in 1997, Oscar-Zero is now a State Historic Site. Largely constructed of #18 rebars, concrete and steel plating, Oscar-Zero took two years to complete, from 1964-1966. Southern miners were transported to North Dakota to handle digging operations for this and other such launch facilities and missile silos. Both the silos and the launch control facilities had subterranean chambers with floating floors linked to enormous shock absorbers developed by Boeing. The steel was supplied by the United States Steel Company (aka The Corporation).

Oscar-Zero's two subterranean pods were protected by thick sheathing described in a previous post, as well as by enormous blast doors, one weighing 6,000 tons, the other 13,000 tons. The missileers stationed command posts in one underground chamber (shown above), while the second chamber housed equipment. Suggestive of the many hours spent underground, the pods are adorned with murals, graffiti, and wall paper depicting more idyllic tourist destinations.

Image above: Oscar-Zero Command Station, Griggs County, North Dakota, as photographed 21.10.2011 by K. Rylance.

Subterranean Steel

We recently came across an article related to the U.S. Minuteman Ballistic Missile System Program. Engineers William J. Hartdegen and John A. Quigley published their configurations for 150 subterranean missile facilities located near the Grand Forks Air Force Base, North Dakota. The pod-like launch and control facilities were comprised of several layers of #18 rebars (top) that were designed to withstand "the high, dynamically applied pressure resulting from a nuclear attack." Dynamic strength capability tests conducted at the University of Illinois suggested that all splices of reinforcing bars of #11 and larger size required butt-welding. The pods were additionally lined with 1/4-inch steel plate in order to provide electromagnetic pulse (EMP) and radio frequency interference (RFI) shielding. A typical launch facility with a 90-foot launch tube and its adjacent capsule-shaped equipment storage space is depicted in the lower image.

Travelers to North Dakota can now visit the Ronald Reagan Minuteman State Historic Site, and journey down an elevator shaft to enter the last* post-disarmament launch control center. Learn more here.

To read more about the construction & view more images, see: Hartdegen & Quigley. "Welding Solves Problems in Multibillion-Dollar Minuteman Program." Chap. in Modern Welded Structures, Vol. III (Cleveland, OH: The James F. Lincoln Arc Welding Foundation, 1970), pp. I-16 to I-20. Available in the Southeastern Architectural Archive.

*Post-Script: As part of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, most of these siloes have been imploded. Read more here.

Thermo-Con Home 1948

The New Orleans firm of Sporl & Maxwell worked on a number of Thermo-Con projects, including this May 1948 design for a parapeted residence. Previous blog posts have addressed Thermo-Con cellular concrete, a New Orleans product developed by Higgins Incorporated and named for its heat insulating capabilities. The company controlled all aspects of Thermo-Con's use, manufacturing the product as well as its wooden forms and mixing/pumping machines.

In March 1948, the Federal Housing Authority approved financing for mortgage loans on Higgins-type cellular concrete dwellings, whereupon company president Andrew Higgins, Sr. announced that franchised contractors across the country would begin building. In New Orleans, McLaney Construction obtained a Thermo-Con franchise and commissioned Sporl & Maxwell to design this two-bedroom home. McLaney built this house TWICE: once in Lake Vista at 98 Egret Street; the other in Lakeview at 6372 Vicksburg Street.

By the mid-1950s Sarasota, Florida changed its building code to accommodate the new material. Beall Construction Co. Incorporated was the community's franchised Thermo-Con contractor, responsible for the Arlington Street Medical Arts Building (1953), the Main Street H & H Cafeteria (1955; razed), the Star Lite Restaurant, Uncle Otey's Steak & Pancake House & Phillips 66 Station (late 1950s; razed), and a seven-unit office/store structure at 1258-1276 North Palm Avenue (1954).

Image above: Front Elevation. Sporl & Maxwell, Architects. Thermo-Con Residence for McLaney Construction Company, 13 May 1948. Maxwell and LeBreton Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Wright's Building Blocks

Jori Finkel of the Los Angeles Times has recently reported on the uncertain future of Frank Lloyd Wright's textile-block homes. The 1923 Millard House (AKA La Miniatura, shown left) has been on the market for years, and its listing price has dropped from $7.7 M to $4.99 M. The 1924 Ennis House (lower two images) went on the market last year at $15 M but is now being offered for $7.49 M, not including the $6 M the buyer must keep on reserve for future preservation efforts. The Millard House may be sold only to be dismantled and reassembled in Japan.

Wright designed his four textile block system homes in southern California after returning from Japan, where he had used cast brick on the Imperial Hotel (1912-1923). Although the latter was razed in 1968, its entrance lobby was preserved, reconstructed at the Meiji Mura Architecture Museum in Nagoya.

The Southeastern Architectural Archive retains a drawing of a full-sized detail of the Imperial Hotel's cast brick, which was once exhibited in the Max Protech Gallery in New York, and was the gift of New Orleans architect James Lamantia.

A number of New Orleans architects visited Frank Lloyd Wright structures in their youth, and brought back photographs and kodachrome slides of their destinations. Tulane School of Architecture graduate Philip H. Roach, Jr. documented La Miniatura and the Ennis House during a long architectural road trip that he took during the 1950s.

Images: Philip H. Roach, Jr., photographer. Frank Lloyd Wright, architect. Circa 1950s. Philip H. Roach, Jr. Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Thermo-Con Cellular Concrete

In the 1950s, the New Orleans-based Higgins Incorporated advertised its patented Thermo-Con Cellular Concrete System. Higgins touted its concrete as an admixture of Portland Cement, water, and "three chemicals" (actually aluminum flake, caustic soda, and bituminous emulsion). The company's advertising department took pains to communicate the product's heat-shielding properties (demonstrated by image above) and to distinguish its approach from any correlation to prefabrication:

The Thermo-Con cellular concrete system is in no way a pre-fabricated construction method. The forms are designed on a one-foot modular principle and can be arranged to fit any desired plan for a home or commercial building. Any architectural style may be chosen and interior space arranged to suit individual needs.

In 1949, New Orleans architects Sporl and Maxwell (Edward Sporl and Murvan "Scotty" Maxwell) designed a luxury Thermo-Con house (images above) for company founder Andrew Higgins (1886-1952). The Southeastern Architectural Archive retains construction drawings for the Higgins House in its Maxwell and LeBreton Office Records Collection. See photographic images on Regional Modernism's flickr set here. See and read about another Thermo-Con house here. The Thermo-Con Lakemoore Apartment Complex (1950), built in suburban Atlanta by businessman Wiley Lemuel Moore , was ultimately converted to a condo colony, the earliest condominium conversion in the city (1969). The buildings are still standing with some minor alterations to the exteriors.

After World War II, Andrew Higgins had originally hoped to develop "Thermo-Namel" homes, prefabricated structures made of enamel-coated steel. A national steel shortage forced the entrepreneur to postpone Thermo-Namel and develop Thermo-Con instead. He claimed that his new concrete foaming agent could expand a Portland cement and water mixture by 40%, and would result in a lightweight cellular concrete " 'of great insulation value and high tensile strength.'"(1)

Documents related to Higgins Industries and Higgins Resources reside in the Vertical Files of Tulane University's Louisiana Research Collection (LaRC) and in the University of New Orleans' Earl K. Long Library.

(1)"No Steel, Higgins Halts on Housing." The Times-Picayune 5 August 1947: p. 1 as it appears in the database America's Historical Newspapers.

Images above from Higgins Inc. Booklet No. 72, SEAA Trade Catalogs Collection.

Film Distribution Row: S. Liberty Street

In the mid-1930s, the 100 and 200 blocks of South Liberty proliferated with motion picture company film distribution centers. United Artists, Warner Brothers and Paramount all owned structures in this corridor. The building below is the lone survivor. Built for United Artists Corporation in 1929, the structure housed fireproof film storage vaults, had concrete floors, and brick outer walls.

In 1953, the New Orleans architectural firm Benson & Riehl (1951-1961) was hired to draft specifications for restoring the former Warner Brothers building after there had been an explosion on the 150 S. Liberty Street site. Also completed in 1929 -- designed by Weiss, Dreyfous and Seiferth -- the Warner Brothers structure had brick walls 12" thick, concrete floors and fireproof vaults for storing films. As Warner Brothers expanded its business, successor firm Dreyfous & Seiferth was hired to build a new film exchange at 201 S. Liberty Street (1948).

Where were the structures located?

United Artists Corporation (built 1929)

Universal Film Exchange (by 1955)

143 & 147 S. Liberty Street

Warner Brothers
150 S. Liberty Street (1929)

201 S. Liberty Street (1948)

Paramount Pictures
215 S. Libery Street

Screen Guild Productions

218 S. Liberty Street

Pathe Film Exchange

221 S. Liberty Street

Saenger Theaters
234 S. Liberty Street

R.K.O. Film Exchange

1418 Cleveland Avenue

Fireproof film vaults were also located at 222 & 223 S. Liberty Streets and 1307 & 1309 Tulane Avenue. In 1931, Southern Sound and Service Inc., a film laboratory, was located at 1315 Tulane Avenue. Most of the area is now developed as Tulane Medical Center.

If you want to read more about the history and development of film exchange/distribution rows, read Max Joseph Alvarez's article, "The Origins of the Film Exchange," Film History: An International Journal 17:4 (2005): 431-465 available from Project Muse.

Historic photographs of many of the film exchange buildings, including the structure below, may be found in the LOUISiana Digital Library. Most of these images were digitized from the Charles L. Franck/Franck-Bertacci Photograph Collection, The Historic New Orleans Collection.

Building contracts/specifications for the original Warner Brothers Film Exchange may be found in the Southeastern Architectural Archive's Weiss, Dreyfous and Seiferth Collection.

Above: 143 & 147 S. Liberty Street, built 1929. Upper right: Detail of Art Deco ornamentation from 143 & 147 S. Liberty Street. As photographed 11.06.2009 by K. Rylance.

Cold War Modern

Two months ago, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London launched its Cold War Modern exhibition:  Last weekend, the V & A hosted a conference focused on Cold War culture; this Friday (28 November), the museum is sponsoring a symposium that brings together architects, critics and curators to discuss experimental architecture in the 1960s.   If you can't visit London before the exhibition's closing 11 January 2009, at least check out the website, which features an interactive timeline riddled with architectural drawings, photographs and models. 

Above:  Kenneth Adam, Design for the War Room in Dr. Strangelove (1962). Felt-tip pen on card.  Additional section added to drawing, 1999.  Collection Sir Kenneth Adam, London.  Didactic from exhibition.