Motion Picture News (Jan-Feb 1922)

1278 The lobby fixtures are of great importance in the general appearance of the theatre. The artistic designs of the Central theatre, Jersey City, are the work of Libman-Spanfer Corp. Competent Engineering Necessary to Insure Safety in Theatre Construction Competition by contractors tends toward lower standards in building materials “Much has been written and a great deal said of late concerning the responsibility of faulty theatre construction. This is due to the two recent theatre collapses — one the American theatre in Brooklyn, which was under construction and in which seven lives of workmen were lost, the other the Knickerbocker theatre in Washington, which had been operating several years, in which ninety-eight lives of patrons have been accounted for to date. “The general public seems to be at a total loss to understand how such things could occur. It is not surprising that a collapse of this nature is not generally understood; indeed it is doubtful whether the architectural or even the engineering profession is able definitely to explain, beyond a reasonable doubt, the reasons therefor. So many factors enter into a problem of this character that it becomes very difficult to establish that there can be but one solution to the problem, and then to prove that particular solution. “Eyewitnesses are usually very few in num ber, if any, and those that are available, due to stress of excitement, may be expected to be indefinite and unreliable. Consequently it is more difficult to find, after failure, where the point of weakness was than it would be to determine it before if a proper and competent search were made. These vital weak points or points of incipient failure must have been there and could have been found prior to or during construction. Why, then, were they not found and such terrible calamities averted? “Numerous reasons may be advanced for this oversight or lack of precaution. Owners generally engage an architect to prepare plans and specifications, including engineering design, and often no inspection is thought necessary or required. The architect, not being an engineer, is obliged to engage some one to do the engineering features, especially with respect to the structural steel, the importance of which is often treated lightly or totally disregarded. “The architect is then placed in a position where he must pay for the engineering work out of his own fee, which may be none too large, and since it is to his interest to get the work done as economically as possible he is disinclined to engage a high-grade engineer at a corresponding price. So he very often engages less reliable services, or even employs an engineering draughtsman in his own office on a small salary basis. When these plans are sent out to contractors for bids, permission is given each contractor to redesign, if he thinks he can reduce his bid by doing so, and he usually thinks he can, so that very frequently in the end the contractor furnishes the design as well as the material, and his only requirement is that he meet the approval of the building department having jurisdiction. This practice should be condemned. Building department engineers are not for that purpose and should not be expected to relieve the owner or architects of their own responsibility. Indeed in many departments they are not able to do so. The Contractor as Engineer “Consequently the work is designed and built with the least possible amount of engineering services, and only those of the contractor, who is naturally biassed with his own itnerests of profit. He therefore not only reduces the amount of steel to a minimum, but does so with more or less incompetent engineering service, ( Continued on page 1280)