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 are Mushroom Columns — large, flared support structures, extending into a disc-like capital.

I can’t tell you how fond I am of these pillars. Seeing mushroom columns is an immediate clue as to the date of the building. It is the type of construction that typifies Early 20th-century Fordism and efficiency.

The Charlotte-Mecklenberg Historic Landmarks Commission has a nice description of why these columns were in such wide use. The unique, load-bearing design of those columns allowed for maximum support with minimal space utilization. The reinforced concrete — which was a revolutionary new design in the early 1900s — also allowed for a fireproof structure.

In Charlotte alone, there were 14 buildings constructed in this way, and I can honestly say that, in the San Francisco Bay Area, I’ve been inside at least a dozen buildings that have this same design.

Often a photographer’s work will blow you away, and you’ll immediately want to know where he or she?took the photo. Some photographers guard their locations with tenacity, but others are willing to give you a few hints.

Loupiote was generous in helping me locate Washington Packing Corp. in San Francisco, an abandoned Tuna Cannery that shuttered due to a nation-wide botulism pandemic, which?killed two women in 1963.

Says Time Magazine: “After months of watching its sales dive because of the botulism scare, the tuna industry is now convinced that it has reinstated tuna as the housewives’ steady standby.” And later in the article: “No one has ever revealed where Washington Packing’s processing went wrong. But the plant remains shut, and though only a few cans were ever infected with botulism, all of Washington Packing’s stock was confiscated by the Government and summarily buried?in a well-publicized move?beneath ten tons of garbage in a dump next to San Francisco’s Candlestick Park.”

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Eureka Valley Dunes, Death Valley National Park

My first experience at the Eureka Dunes was with a Geography field course in college. We learned the basics of the barchan dune, crescent dune, transverse dune… But what I remember most about it was its music.

These sand dunes literally sing. The cacaphonic wave resembles a far away didgeridoo. You initiate the sound by stepping on a steep incline of sand, high up on the crest where the sand is at its angle of repose. As the sand avalanches down, the friction from the moisture and the tiny bits of silica colliding emit a beautiful, mesmerizing tune.

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