Bracing for Disaster: Engineers, Architects, and the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906
Stephen Tobriner
This lecture presents a revolutionary view of the 1906 earthquake. While popular authors have claimed San Franciscans consistently denied earthquakes and learned nothing from them, this lecture will prove that engineers and architects built earthquake-resistant buildings after the earthquakes of 1868 and 1906. Compared with building performance in contemporary earthquakes elsewhere, San Francisco's buildings performed satisfactorily in the 1906 earthquake. Further, many of the buildings which survived the earthquake of 1906, did not do so by chance, but were designed to be seismically resistant. The intense engineering studies after the 1906 earthquake resulted in avant-garde seismically-resistant buildings, which still stand in San Francisco today. The lecture resurrects the story of forgotten engineers and architects who did not deny earthquakes but actively intervened to save San Francisco.
The lecture will be illustrated with slides and is intended for the general audience.
|
For more information, please contact us!
|
Copyright 2002-2003, The Regents of the University of California.
Last modified: Wed Sep 14 14:39:24 PDT 2005