Shukhov Tower
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The Shukhov radio tower, also known as the Shabolovka tower (Russian: Шуховская башня) is a tower in Moscow. It is a 160-metre-high free-standing steel framework of hyperboloids of revolution. It was built in 1919–1922 as a transmission tower for Russian broadcasting. It is the hyperboloid structure (hyperbolic shell).
The graceful tower, one of two hundred designed by Vladimir Shukhov, was projected to attain the height of 350 metres, but severe shortages of steel in post-Civil War Russia led to the height being reduced to 160 metres. His construction methods were also innovative: the tower was raised according to his own telescopic method of assembly.
This tower is acknowledged as one of the most beautiful and prominent achievements of engineering thought, the masterpiece of engineering art.
The most graceful among the inventions of V.G.Shukhov are the metal lattice shells. The structure of a typical Shukhov tower is also a lattice shell in the form of a single-cavity hyperboloid of revolution. Shukhov was the first in the world to invent and use in construction the lattice metal shells in the form of hanging and arch-shaped overhead covers and hyperboloid towers (patents of Russian Empire №1894, №1895, №1896 dated March 12, 1899, declared by Shukhov on 27.03.1895 - 11.01.1896). For the 1896 All-Russia industrial and art exhibition in Nizhniy Novgorod V.G.Shukhov built eight gigantic pavilions with hanging and arch-shaped lattice overhead covers of the total area of 25070 square meters and the steel lattice 25-meter tower, which became the first hyperboloid structure in the world. The astonishing lattice structures caused delight of the European specialists. The English magazine "The Engineer" published an article about the Shukhov tower and about the overhead covers at the 1896 exhibition in Nizhniy Novgorod - "The Nijni-Novgorod exhibition: Water tower, room under construction, springing of 91 feet span", The Engineer, 1897, № 19.3. - P. 292-294: ill. After the exhibition had closed, the openwork tower of rare beauty was bought by the well-known Maecenas of that time Yu.S. Nechaev-Maltsev and placed in his estate Polibino, Lipetsk region, where it has preserved until now under the state protection. In the subsequent years, V.G.Shukhov developed numerous structures of various lattice steel shells and used them in hundreds of buildings: overhead covers of public buildings and industrial objects, water towers, sea lighthouses, masts of warships and supports for power transmission lines. The hyperboloid structures and lattice shells appeared abroad only 10 years after the Shukhov's invention. The Shukhov tower in Shabolovka, Moscow had become the highest of Shukhov's towers.
Thanks to its lattice structure, the steel shell of Shukhov Tower in Shabolovka experiences minimum wind load, which is the main hazard for high-rising buildings. The tower sections are single-cavity hyperboloids of rotation made of straight beams, which ends rest against circular foundations. The openwork steel structure combines strength and lightness: it was spent three times less of metal on the unit height of the Shukhov Tower than on the unit height of the Eifel Tower in Paris. According to the initial project, the Shukhov Tower with the height of 350 meters had the estimated mass of only 2200 ton, while the Eifel Tower in Paris with the height of 350 meters weighs 7300 ton. But during the Civil war the government could not find enough quantity of steel profiles to realize the first project of the tower. Shukhov had to develop the second project of the tower's structure with the height of 148,5 meters. Later, after the installation of two beams and a flagpole the height of the Shukhov Tower reached 160 meters. The round conic case of the tower consists of 6 sections with the height of 25 meters each. The lower section is mounted onto the concrete foundation with the diameter of 40 meters and the depth of 3 meters. The construction of the tower was conducted by the telescopic method - without scaffolding and lifting cranes. The upper sections were assembled inside the lower one by turns and with the help of pulleys and winches were lifted onto each other. During its more than 80-year history the Shukhov Tower served as a support for the antennas of big radio and TV stations: Moscow radiotelegraph station, 40-kWatt broadcasting station "Big Komintern", Moscow TV center.
Later, such famous architects as Antonio Gaudi, Le Corbusier, Oscar Niemeyer used hyperboloid structures in their creative work. The authors of the modern lattice shells are Frei Otto, Norman Foster, Frank Gehry.
The international scientific conference "Heritage at Risk. The preservation of the XX century architecture and the World's heritage", which was held in Moscow in April, 2006 with the participation of 170 specialists from 30 countries of the world, acknowledged the Shukhov Tower to be the object of the world's heritage.
In 2007 the Shukhov Tower will be 85 years old and it needs a serious expertise and restoration. It is expedient to restore the tower with the participation of domestic and foreign specialists, the competent scientific institutions and public organizations.
The Shukhov radio tower is not accessible to tourists. The street address of the tower is "Shabolovka Street, 37", hence the tower's informal name.
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[edit] See also
- Hyperboloid structure
- Vladimir Shukhov
- Shukhov tower on the Oka River
- Constructivist architecture
- List of towers
[edit] External links
- General data of Shukhov Tower in Moscow
- 3D model of the Shukhov tower
- Views of the hyperboloid tower
- Invention of Hyperboloid Structures
- Die sparsame Konstruktion
[edit] References
- Brumfield, William Cruft. The Origins of Modernism in Russian Architecture, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1991.
- Elizabeth Cooper English: “Arkhitektura i mnimosti”: The origins of Soviet avant-garde rationalist architecture in the Russian mystical-philosophical and mathematical intellectual tradition”, a dissertation in architecture, 264 p., University of Pennsylvania, 2000.
- Rainer Graefe: “Vladimir G. Šuchov 1853-1939 - Die Kunst der sparsamen Konstruktion.”, S.192, Stuttgart, DVA, 1990. [1]
[edit] Photos
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