Famous Building Failures

[scalziand]

Great fall of China: section of wall collapses
A section of the centuries-old Great Wall of China has collapsed due to a combination of heavy rainfall and construction works.

By Nargiza Ryskulova3:41PM BST 08 Aug 2012
Workmen digging up a square in Zhangjiakou city, Heibei province, near the wall have been blamed for triggering the collapse of 100 ft of Great Wall.
“There is an investigation into the causes of the collapse. A number of things may have contributed, including the building work," said a city official.
City officials said that “conservation and a rebuilding plan is already underway.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...collapses.html

Only the section of wall that had been rebuilt in 1995 collapsed.
http://news.searchina.ne.jp/disp.cgi...0808_082.shtml

[jg6544]

I don't know if they would qualify as "failures", but several high-rises in downtown Houston got pretty banged up in a hurricane a few years back and some while before that, a toronado did a lot of damage in downtown Ft. Worth. Also, the once tallest building in Ft. Worth, the old Continental National Bank building, was torn down a few years ago.

[untitledreality]

Kansas City Hyatt Regency: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyatt_R...lkway_collapse

[mdiederi]

Italy's leaning towers:
The Leaning Tower of Pisa, Pisa
The Campanile of San Nicola, Pisa
The Campanile of San Michele degli Scalzi, Pisa
The Asinelli and Garisenda towers in Bologna
The Campanile of San Martino church on the island of Burano, Venice
The Campanile of San Giorgio dei Greci in Venice
The Campanile of Santo Stefano in Venice
The Campanile of Duomo di Santo Stefano in Caorle, Venice
Torre delle Milizie, Rome

[NYC]

Some bridge failures

Tacoma Narrows Bridge, 1940

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacoma_..._Bridge_(1940)

35-W Bridge, 2007

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/35W_Bri...lapse#Collapse

Kutai Kartanegara Bridge, 2011

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...collapses.html

[Biff]

Originally Posted by scalziand

Great fall of China: section of wall collapses
A section of the centuries-old Great Wall of China has collapsed due to a combination of heavy rainfall and construction works.

I know it technically fits your thread because it actually had a section collapse, but my interpretation of the meaning of this thread was a structure that failed due to improper construction methods. I would hardly compare the collapse of a section of the Great Wall due to a modern day construction project compromising it's structural integrity, to say, the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. The Great Wall has stood for over 2,300 years. I doubt even the best built buildings today will last half that long.

I'm not trying to be a jerk here, and i find this thread interesting but i guess i am just trying to stick up for the Great Wall. It is obviously one of the best built longest lasting structures on earth, much like the Pyramids.

.......sorry for listening to my rant, please don't take offense. I can't wait to see more building collapse entries.

[mdiederi]

The Harmon
Las Vegas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmon_Hotel

The Harmon is a highrise building in the CityCenter Las Vegas development in Paradise, Nevada. The tower was designed by Foster + Partners as a non-gaming boutique hotel. The building features an elliptical layout and highly reflective exterior located on the northeast corner of the project at the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and Harmon Avenue. Serious construction defects to the building were discovered in 2008, and the project was halted indefinitely. On August 15, 2011 MGM announced plans to implode the building.

The tower was planned to have 400 hotel rooms and approximately 207 condominium residences on 49 floors.

In late 2008, work on the Harmon Hotel/Condo Tower was stopped after inspectors discovered construction defects: county inspectors discovered improper installation by Pacific Coast Steel, of critical steel reinforcements (rebar) after 15 stories of the building had already been erected. The error caused a major change in the building's design; instead of being 49 stories, it was reduced to 28 stories with the condominium element removed entirely.

On July 11, 2011 a report was released by Weidlinger Associates, an engineering firm hired by MGM Resorts International. This report indicated that the building was likely to collapse in a major earthquake and that a determination of possible repairs would take at least a year.

There are about a hundred news stories about the ongoing litigation, the contractor trying to get an opportunity to fix the building and the developer trying to get the ok to demolish it and get money back from the contractor.

[Alpha]

List of such disasters

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of..._and_collapses

Please complete!

[MolsonExport]

great thread topic. Can't forget the house of the soviets, Kaliningrad SSR. Never used.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_o...Kaliningrad%29

The USSR attempted to build a 22-story House of Soviets, "the ugliest building on Russian soil," in Kaliningrad but the structure had been built on the property of the castle. Unfortunately, the castle contained many underground tunnels and the building began to slowly collapse though it still stands, unoccupied.

http://geography.about.com/od/specif...aliningrad.htm

[ethereal_reality]

Brutalist to the nth degree. Is it still standing?

[MolsonExport]

yes. it has been sheathed (rather like that tower in Pyongyang) in glass, but is unusable. Frosting on a dog turd.

[Aleks]

I was pretty disappointed with the reclad, it looks like crap! the original was sooo much more interesting. useless but definitely not an ugly building (imo).

[Barbarossa]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaning_Tower_of_Pisa

The tower's tilt began during construction, caused by an inadequate foundation on ground too soft on one side to properly support the structure's weight. The tilt increased in the decades before the structure was completed, and gradually increased until the structure was stabilized (and the tilt partially corrected) by efforts in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

[ThatOneGuy]

Nobody will ever call the unfinished building in Kaliningrad the "Tower of Doom" or "The Worst Building in the World" (despite it being abandoned for 30 years or so) because Russia is no longer a big American enemy.

I'm surprised nobody mentioned the Windsor Tower, which partially collapsed due to a fire.

[IMBY]

Originally Posted by mdiederi

The Harmon
Las Vegas
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmon_Hotel



There are about a hundred news stories about the ongoing litigation, the contractor trying to get an opportunity to fix the building and the developer trying to get the ok to demolish it and get money back from the contractor.

I sure hope to God this awesome building can be saved. It has all that I love in it: curved pillbox shape, and multi-colored glass.

[Cro Burnham]

Originally Posted by uaarkson

I'm sick of people posting that Shanghai failure as some indication that China's buildings are prone to just falling over. Workers were illegally digging near the foundation, that's what cause it to fall. It had nothing to do with the design or construction.

I think you are wrong. That building had toothpick foundations, probably because officials took bribes to let lousy contractors do the building on the cheap.

If you were to dig and unsettle the earth next to the empire state, do you suppose it would fall over? Have you ever seen anything like this anywhere else?

There is a tongue-in-cheek saying in china whenever (too frequently) a major highway bridges collapses: "ah, it collapsed because an illegally overloaded truck drove over it" - because this is what the officials always say is the cause. Of course it wasn't an overloaded truck. If it were an overloaded truck, the tires would have burst long before the bridge would have collapsed, before the truck got anywhere close to the bridge. the bridge collapsed because it was cheaply built by corrupt builders who gave corrupt officials kickbacks.

Same here. Guys digging next to a skyscraper don't make it fall down. Weak, inadequate foundations do. Would you live in a building in that complex? I doubt it. In most other countries, the whole complex would be demo'd.

[scalziand]

It's a proximate vs ultimate cause thing. The nearby excavation was the proximate cause, and the substandard foundation was the ultimate cause.

[tino7710]

Post Images, or (True) Stories about disasters that has happened to buildings in this thread.
One disaster, in-fact, happened in my province in Canada. In the town of Elliot Lake, Ontario. The roof of the mall inside that town, collapsed, killing 2 people.
Here are some images;
http://www.cbc.ca/gfx/images/news/ph...p-02852536.jpg
signbuildsource.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Algo-Centre-Mall-Collapse.jpg
http://media.winnipegfreepress.com/i...28/4797377.jpg

They are almost done demolishing the mall there. There will be a new mall there by the end of 2014, named Pearson Plaza.

[tino7710]

Just realized I posted this in the 'Skyscraper and Urban Art' section .
I don't really know how to move it. Sorry about that guys .

[scalziand]

We already have a thread for these kinds of failures.

Famous Building Failures