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Inside Berkeley’s Bevatron, a particle accelerator. This is the type of complex that is getting Iran in trouble now, but obviously on a much larger scale. Though plutonium was never produced here, it was the site of the […]

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Downtown Kennett, California. Notice the “Meat Market” sign in the center building. photo courtesy of the Bureau of Reclamation.

In 1944, the Bureau of Reclamation closed the gates at Shasta Dam and began inundating the vast network of valleys in the Shasta National Forest. In the valleys resided three unique cities, a fish hatchery, and thousands […]

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The SS Red Oak Victory via the sky, thanks to MSN’s Virtual Earth
Today, I visited the SS Red Oak Victory. Dad was visiting from Oregon, and I knew he would be interested, because my grandfather served on a similar ship (not a Victory ship, but a Liberty ship). The only difference between the two […]

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Pabco Roofing Manufacturing Company’s railroad-facing facade has glass bricks. It looks like original construction, which means these glass blocks pre-dated Art Deco and Art Moderne, an indication that their first use was in industrial architecture.
Glass blocks (also known as glass bricks) can be found in almost every city that existed in the 1930s to […]

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A Mushroom Column — Quintessential element of an early 20th century manufacturing or industrial structure
Albert Kahn revolutionized industrial architecture with his Ford Packard plant and similar factory designs. What was perhaps most influential in Architecture was his use of reinforced concrete, beginning ca. 1904.
A quintessential element of many industrial buildings, from 1900 to 1950 […]

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