Flawed Foundations: The Stories Behind Famous Building Disasters

Not all buildings are famous for the right reasons. From a skyscraper that melts cars to a bridge that turned into a giant wind chime, some architectural designs are so flawed they’ve made history—just not the kind architects dream of! As architecture is precise and delicate, sometimes things go wrong. 

1. The Leaning Tower of Pisa (Italy)

Now one of the most famous landmarks in the world, it is a favorite destination for tourists as well as a “must-do” funny selfie opportunity. The tower wouldn’t be anywhere near as famous if it didn’t have its signature lean, which actually wasn’t intentional or designed. The tower actually started leaning during the construction process. This was due to unsuitable ground and unstable foundation. The tilt became even worse over the course of construction, and the builders attempted to correct the problem by building upper levels at an angle to the base. You can see this evidence today with the tower’s slight curve in form (1). It wasn’t enough. Yet the accidental tilt is what launched this building to fame. 

2. The Walkie-Talkie Building (England)

The London skyline is always full of unique buildings, some more than others. And one of the most unique is the walkie-talkie building. The building is designed with the floor area increasing as the floors get higher. This makes the building look like a walkie-talkie, hence the name. It was designed in 2004 by the well-known architect Rafael Viñoly and was originally intended to have a height of 200m. However, due to the proximity to areas such as St Paul's Cathedral and the Tower of London, it was shrunk to 160m (3). This is actually not what caused the flaw though. The curved windows of the buildings are reflective, which causes them to act like a giant mirror. This led to extreme heat amplification on the ground below, causing temperatures to soar to more than 70 degrees Celsius. In one infamous incident, the building's intense heat melted a Jaguar, leaving its owner in disbelief. A group of journalists actually managed to fry an egg on the sidewalk, highlighting the alarming nature of the heat radiating from the building (4). Easy to say this was not Rafael Viñoly’s intended impact. 

3. The Tacoma Narrows Bridge (USA)

Located in Washington, USA, the bridge was supposed to connect the Olympic Peninsula with the mainland of Washington state. But the landmark became a huge failure in the engineering and design world. The problem with the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge was its vulnerability to aerodynamic forces, which were insufficiently understood at the time. The bridge collapsed on November 7, 1940, only months after opening, due to torsional oscillations caused by a wind of about 42 miles per hour (5). Torsional oscillations are vibrations that occur when a body twists back and forth in a horizontal plane (6). The design featured a narrow two-lane roadway and stiffening plate girders instead of web trusses, which did not adequately absorb wind turbulence. This resulted in a high degree of flexibility and susceptibility to wind-induced motion. The collapse led to significant advances in aerodynamic research and bridge design, including the abandonment of plate girders in suspension bridges and the implementation of web trusses in the replacement bridge built in 1950 (5).

4. The John Hancock Tower (USA)

The John Hancock building seemed to be a cursed project. The builders dealt with disaster after disaster. When construction started, the foundations caused trouble. Then the structure needed stabilizing. But most famously was when all the windows fell out of the structure (7). The unfinished tower had more than 10,000 windows, each about 12 square metres of glass. When the wind blew the panes started shattering, and broken fragments rained down onto the city below. The original assumption for the problem was that the scale model of the design was wrong and the wind channelling past the building was creating more suction than expected. However, they later discovered the problem was the windows themselves. The outer layer of windows were rigidly soldered to the metal window frame, allowing no flexibility. Since the windows could not flex in the wind they cracked instead. The cracks spread and soon entire windows failed (8). The building was later discontinued and boarded up.

Citations

1. Sarkar, D. (2021). The Leaning Tower of Pisa Wasn’t Supposed to Lean. [online] Discover Magazine. Available at: https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/the-leaning-tower-of-pisa-wasnt-supposed-to-lean. [Accessed 16 Jan. 2025].

2. Criscione, C. (2023). 23 Leaning Tower of Pisa Facts – For Travelers and Students (with Sources). [online] The Tuscan Mom. Available at: https://thetuscanmom.com/leaning-tower-of-pisa-facts/ [Accessed 16 Jan. 2025].

3. Ruthe, L. (2023). Dangerous Eyesore: Walkie-Talkie. [online] Dlubal Software. Available at: https://www.dlubal.com/en/news-and-events/news/blog/000132?srsltid=AfmBOop4LQ9PBmHa0QOTQXD6T7E05l1EueFtAxFaJ_PGjayeMmrRv_df [Accessed 16 Jan. 2025].

4. O’Sullivan, F. (2015). Bloomberg - Are you a robot? [online] www.bloomberg.com. Available at: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-03/the-walkie-talkie-really-is-london-s-worst-building. [Accessed 16 Jan. 2025].

5. The (1998). Tacoma Narrows Bridge | Collapse, Disaster, Length, History, & Facts. [online] Encyclopedia Britannica. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Tacoma-Narrows-Bridge#ref1 [Accessed 16 Jan. 2025].

6. Nasa.gov. (2022). NASA@SC22: Investigation of Solar Torsional Oscillations and Their Relation to Activity Cycles. [online] Available at: https://www.nas.nasa.gov/SC22/research/project33.html [Accessed 16 Jan. 2025].

7. Goldberger, P. (1976). Hancock Tower to Be Dedicated Today; Some Problems Solved, but Others Linger. The New York Times. [online] 29 Sep. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/1976/09/29/archives/hancock-tower-to-be-dedicated-today-some-problems-solved-but-others.html. [Accessed 16 Jan. 2025].

8. The Guardian. (2014). Weatherwatch: Gusts and a glassy skyscraper test the engineers. [online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2014/nov/12/weatherwatch-skyscraper-gusts-glass-panes-boston. [Accessed 16 Jan. 2025].