Technical English for Architecture Marta Fernndez Lorenzo Mnica Valbuena Cotanilla

Citicorp Center
1977, Manhattan, NY, U.S.A.

The Citicorp Center is a skyscraper located in New York, in midtown Manhattan, which was completed in 1977. It was designed by the group of architects Hugh Stubbins & Associates and Emery Roth & Sons. The main use of the building is to host the headquarters of one of the most important bank in the country, the Citibank Group, which was also the developer in the construction of the building. With its 279 meters of height, spread over 59 floors, the Citicorp Center is the 4th tallest building in the city and 3rd tallest in midtown. At the time of its construction the building broke with the prototype of skyscrapers that previously were in the city. The Citigroup Center was the first tower in Manhattan that parted with the then prevalent Internationalist Style. Instead of a flat top the designers gave the building a distinctive angled roof line which has an inclination of 45 degrees. From the beginning the construction of Citicorp building was a real challenge that had to be solved by some innovative ideas, which were proposed by William LeMessurier, one of the nations leading structural engineer. The first problem had been posed by a church, which was occupying the northwest corner of the chosen site. The church allowed Citicorp to demolish the old church and build the new skyscraper under one condition: a new church would have to be built on the same corner with no connections to the Citicorp building. In order to clear space for the new church, Le Messurier set the fifty-nine-story tower on four massive, thirty-five-meter-high stilts and positioned them at the center of each side, rather than at the corners. This design allowed the designer to cantilever the buildings corners twenty-two meters out, over the new church on the northwest, and over a square on the southwest. Furthermore, to direct the forces to the columns, he designed a steel-frame structure composed of a system of forty-eight load-bearing braces in the form of inverted chevrons. Each chevron redirects the loads to their center, and then guides them downward, in compression, through the four stilts. The fortyeight braces are arranged in a six-tiered pattern on each side of the building. Each tier span eight stories in height, behind the buildings curtain walls of aluminum and glass, and they were designed to be erected in pieces joined by full penetration welds. Another issue had to be addressed by the engineer: for a building of its height Citicorp was relatively lightweight, making it more dynamically excitable. Thats why LeMessurier used a Tuned-Mass-Damper (TDM). Citicorps TMD is essentially a four-hundred-and-ten-tons block of concrete which works as a counterweight, trying to slow the buildings sway caused by wind forces. Almost by chance, some structure flaws which compromised the buildings stability were discovered by the engineer. The full-penetration welds were changed for bolted joints after the buildings plans were approved. In most cases, bolted joints are equally safe, easier to carry out and therefore cheaper but, in this case, the bracing system was unusually sensitive to diagonal winds and this sensitivity were higher in the bolted joints. As a result, the bolts holding the joints together were very few and if one of them failed, catastrophic collapse of the whole structure would follow. LeMessurier calculated the probability of a storm severe enough to tear any joint apart, and that could happen as often as once every sixteen year. When the influence of the TMD was included, the probability dropped to one in fifty-five years, but the machine required electric current, which may fail during a storm. Obviously, the situation was very serious and could get worse, since all this had been discovered in the month of June, the beginning of hurricane season. For that reason, the company and LeMessurier together with the Red Cross, the police and the mayors emergency forces immediately developed a repair and evacuation plan for the building and the surrounding area. They decided to remedy the connections by welding five-centimeter-thick steel plates over each of more than two hundred bolted joints. Furthermore, to guarantee the proper functioning of the TMD, emergency generators and an employee of the TMD company were brought, as well as a two meteorological experts who provide weather forecast four times a day. Finally, repair work could be finished without any obstacle and now, even if the TMD failed, a seven-hundred-year storm wouldnt pose a threat to the Citicorp Center.