Let's Hear it for the Quonset Hut

Quonset hut unloaded during U.S. occupation of Japan, ca. 1945

On Memorial Day people throughout the United States gather at sites dedicated to our veterans.  Most monuments to fallen soldiers are impressive and many are beautiful.  Yet no structure says "military" more than the humble Quonset hut.

G.I's in with Bob Hope in Quonset Hut, ca. 1944

Small and squat or lean and mean, however you want to describe it, this prefab, easy-to-assemble, multipurpose building provided shelter for thousands of soldiers and sailors during World War II.
      Today, over seventy-five years later, Quonset huts are enjoying a revival as restaurants, offices, and inexpensive housing.  In some places they have even been revived as the latest thing in innovative, "green" living. 
     A little historic background here:  Though Quonset huts are almost always associated with World War II, they actually made their debut as Nissen huts during World War I. Designed in April 16, 1916, by British engineer, Major Peter Norman Nissen, the original huts used the familiar half-cylinder shape but were made of a heavier and less pliable grade of corrugated steel.
     When the United States entered World War II in 1941, the military needed an easily transported shelter that could be assembled on the spot.  Army engineers settled on a larger and more lightweight version of Nissen's hut.  By early spring of 1942, the  first of these shelters rolled off the assembly line of the George A. Fuller company of Quonset Point, Rhode Island. The Nissen hut was soon renamed the Quonset hut and Quonset it remained no matter where it was manufactured.

Post War Housing

   After the war, a surplus of Quonset huts became of boon for universities seeking to accommodate thousands of new students attending college on the G.I Bill. Other Quonset huts became diners, medical clinics, or elementary schools.
   For many decades, Quonset huts seemed forgotten but far from gone. Repainted, run-down, abandoned, or otherwise anonymous Quonset huts pocked the post war landscape.  Sometimes they were regarded as eyesores, other times, they were ignored. 

Daniels House, Knoxville, TN

 Then, in 1982, Tennessee architect Peter Calandruccio purchased an unusual Quonset hut home. Built in 1948 and known as Daniels House, after the family that owned it, the home had been designed by James W. Fitzgibbon.  Fitzgibbon was friend and colleague of Buckminster Fuller, the father of the famous geodesic dome.  Fitzgerald took the Quonset hut and combined it with  Fuller's space age style and some of the traditional materials of the Tennessee countryside--a sort of deconstructed version of the hut nestled into a hillsiade.
     The house had deteriorated by the late 1970s, but Calandruccio knew an architectural treasure when he saw one.  He restored much of the house and sold it to a family equally committed to keeping it intact.  In 1998, Daniels House became the only Quonset hut style residence on the National Register of Historic Places.
   Now it seems we are in the midst of a Quonset hut resurgence.  Quonset huts have their own websites, fan clubs, and followers.  They are now on the cutting edge of affordable, eco-friendly housing.
   Each May, we reserve a special day to recognize the sacrifice of war veterans. That doesn't mean, however, that we should forget them the rest of the time.  Quonset huts, with their unique history and unmistakable design, remind us that we can both preserve the past and look to the future 365 days a year.

LINKS
You can learn more about the history of Quonset huts from the U.S. Naval History Center.  For some great pictures of Quonset huts in the late 1940s and early 50s visit Quonset Hut Habitats.  And Green Passive Solar Magazine has an excellent article on the green renovation of a Quonset Hut in Montrose County, Colorado.

Photo Credits:
U.S. Navel History Center
Wikipedia Commons
National Register of Historic Places.

Lotus Temple, Baha'i House of Worship, New Delhi

Lotus Temple, New Delhi, India

Whether you count yourself as a believer or not, you'll probably admit that the world's great religions have given rise to some great buildings.  If you had to name the most visited religious site in the world, what would it be?  Mecca, the site of the annual Muslim hadj? The Western Wall, or Kotel, of Jerusalem? Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome? 
    If you've already taken the picture to the left as a hint, then you know the answer is the Lotus Temple, officially known as the Baha'i House of Worship, in New Delhi, India.  If you've never heard of the temple, then you're in for a surprise. Completed in 1986, the Temple attracts around 4 million visitors a year, or about 13,000 each day.  According to CNN, that makes it not just the most visited religious building in the world, but the most visited building, period.

Lotus Temple in daylight

     What makes this statistic even more interesting, is that the vast majority of those visitors are not members of the Baha'i faith. Baha'i is an international religion with an estimated 5-7 million followers worldwide. The temple, however, is open to all.  No religious rites may be carried out within its walls, but any religious text may be read out loud there.  In India, many Hindus converge on the Lotus Temple on major festival days. The beautiful and unusual architecture also attracts visitors of every faith and persuasions year round.

Interior skylight

     As the name implies, the temple is constructed in the shape of a lotus. Three concentric circles of nine "leaves" come together to form a single dome. All Baha'i temples are required to have nine sides.  Architect Fairborz Sahba chose this particular design, though, because the lotus is a symbol of life throughout India. 
   Born in Persia and educated at the University of Tehran, Sahba was only 28 years old when he received the commission to build the Lotus Temple in 1976.  He had already started to make his mark though, having been recognized for his low cost housing plans in Iran and for the design of the Baha'i administrative center in Haifa, Israel.

Architect's model for the Lotus Temple

    Before he started designing the temple, Sahba traveled through India visiting sites large and small, from the famous Taj Mahal to the ancient caves temples of Ellora and Ajanta. Everywhere he looked he encountered the image of the lotus, whether created from precious stones or sketched with charcoal on stone walls.  As he recalled later, "The deep respect for the lotus, spontaneously evoked in Indian hearts everywhere, and their loving attachment to this sacred flower convinced me to end my search for further ideas for the design."

Interior of Lotus Temple

Ariel view of temple showing ponds.

    The next challenge was translating his inspiration into concrete--literally. The light and airy structure was to be built entirely of steel, concrete, and marble--materials that are light and airy.
       The temple presented a geometric puzzle as well as a structural challenge.  There was not a single straight line in Sahba's design. It took over two years for engineers to complete the calculations necessary for the construction to begin.  Basically, each of the lotus petals was conceived as an outer section of a sphere.  (Think of a three-dimensional Venn diagram, with only part of each circle visible.)  In addition, Sahba wanted to rely on natural ventilation, rather than air conditioning to keep the temple cool during New Dehli's legendary warm season.  To accomplish this, he surrounded the temple with nine pools of water. These pools not only provided a lovely landscape, they cooled the air flowing into the temple via the arched entry ways.  Air is then drawn upward via fans and exits through the central skylight.  This system is both ecologically sound and aesthetic.  The gentle, continuous flow of cool air becomes part of the temple's spiritual as well as physical climate.
   When the temple finally opened to the public in 1986, it was immediately embraced by people of all faiths.  The architectural world was equally impressed. In its first few years, India's Baha'i House of Worship received numerous international awards. One of the most unusual came from the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America which bestowed the Paul Waterbury Outdoor Lighting Design Award on the temple in 1989. In 2000, the Architectural Society of China called the temple one of the 100 most significant buildings of the twentieth century.  That same year, Sahba received the GlobArt Award in Vienna Austria.  In the past 26 years, over 500 articles on the temple have appeared in newspapers and magazines in nearly every major world language.
   Yet all these honors are secondary to what Sahba has called, "the spiritual nature of the place."
    "It is a concrete embodiment of the unity of mankind," he told one interviewer.  With millions of visitors from all over the globe flocking to the temple every year, it is clear that on this issue at least, mankind agrees.

Links:
The Baha'i House of Worship site is the main source of information on the temple.  Click on the virtual tour for some breathtaking views.  The Architecture of Faiborz Sahba gives further details of the architect's works and career. 

Photo Credits:  Wikimedia Commons
Interview Quotes: Baha'i House of Worship: Interview with the Architect

This Week in Architecture

Butterfly House, Thailand

Inexpensive, sustainable, architecture is more than a fad: It's a necessity in many countries. The Wall Street Journal addresses this issue in a review of the book Design Like You Give a Damn: Building From the Ground Up by Architecture for Humanity.  Check out the Butterfly Houses in Thailand. Cool in every sense of the word.

We've always known that the World Trade Center would rise again.  The only question was "how high?" On Monday, April 30, a steel column placed atop the exoskeleton of 1 World Trade Center made it New York's tallest building at 1271 feet.  The skyscraper is still a work in progress. The column is meant to support the 100th floor of the completed building. This New York Times article gives the whole story along with some good quotes from architect David Childs.  If you want to learn more about the plans World Trade Center, New York's Skyscraper Museum maintains and excellent page on their website. 

Coney Island Carousel

While we're on the subject of New York, the city has also been selected as the site of the 2012 Partners in Preservation Program.  Jointly sponsored by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and American Express, this program will award a total $3 million in preservation funds to a few lucky sites in the city.  The catch?  The public gets to choose the sites via online voting.  This year, 40 places are in the running, among them the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, the Coney Island B&B Carousel, and the former home of jazz great Louis Armstrong, now a museum devoted to Armstrong and his music, located on 107th St. in Corona, Queens. To find out how you can vote visit the Partners in Preservation website and follow the steps to register.  You can vote up to once a day until the contest closes on May 21.


Photo Credits: Architecture for Humanity
                       New York City Economic Development Corp.