Arthur Takeuchi
"A Cultural Center" (MS 1959)
Advisor: Daniel Brenner
Others acknowledged: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Ludwig Hilberseimer
Material: Steel
Structural system: Welded diagrid roof system, external columns
Maximum span: 283 ft.
“The cultural center is a product of our time. The significance of a cultural center, like its historical counterparts, is based primarily on the temper of the space resulting from the grouping of the buildings. The static corporeality of the stoa-formed agora and the perspective of the renaissance piazza are each the reflection of different space concepts. In contrast to these concepts of demarcated space or “closed” space, the idea of “free standing” elements as the means of formulating extensive space reflects the spatial concept of our time. The use of glass-sheathed skeleton structure supports this tendency to disembody space giving it the quality of atmospheric transparency.”
Arthur Takeuchi selected Grant Park as the project site, and its development included two studies on how to improve relationships between pedestrian and vehicular use. The final plan is a group of buildings including concert hall and theater, gallery for fine arts, gallery for science and technology, library building, and administration building, all conceived as steel and glass structures.
One building was developed further, the concert hall and theater building. To provide a large column-free rectangular area, three structural systems were considered: the one-way beam-girder-column system, two-way orthogonal grid of intersecting girders or trusses, and the (45 degree) diagrid of intersecting girders. The proposed building measures 283 feet by 510 feet by 60 feet high. The structure consists of welded steel plates which transfer load from purlin to diagonal girder (spaced at 40 feet) to edge girder. Twelve (12) external, double cross columns support the roof from the perimeter.
“Structure as the basis of architecture implies undeviating allusion to the idea of the structure in the articulation of the parts. The inherent richness of form is the result of the organic relationship of each part to the whole.”
