Turn a building while people are working inside? It is possible, and the Palazzo della Indiana Bell in Indianapolis (capital of Indiana, USA), which came between 12 October and 14 November 1930 rotated on itself 90 °. We are not talking about a small building: it was high 8 floors and weighed about 11,000 tons.
But rightly you are wondering … why never rotate it? The curious choice was of the company Indiana Bell Telephone Companywhich after purchasing the Central Union Telephone Company building in 1929 in front of a problem: the building he had no enough offices. But you could not demolish everything and make another building from scratch, because in doing so the telephone service of an entire state would be interrupted. So it was decided to rotate the building just purchased to create more space and accessibility, also allowing to build the New Art Decò style headquarters right next to it.
To rotate the building, the engineers used a truly innovative technique: the elevator compartment was modified to prevent the cabin from finishing in the basement, the building was raised thanks to some hydraulic lifts (steam machines), the columns were raised from the cast iron bases to the foundations and placed on media temporary steel. At this point they were placed and activated 18 Martinetti (mechanical or hydraulic devices used to lift, move or support heavy structures, applying a controlled force on walls or foundations) operated manually with the aim of moving the long supports of the rollers (pine trunks) of 0.95 cm at a time, moving the building of 38 cm per hour. Once the building was rolled enough forward, the last trunk would have been moved in the head until it completed the 90 ° rotation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqorhrztw6c
The columns were moved by the workers at the same speed, following in a painstaking way the orders of the head of the head of the whistle He reported when he had to pull the levers. During this series of delicate passages, a team of engineers had to keep an eye on the alignment of the building with a lead thread: If one of the rollers began to move from the position it was struck with a club. Finally, the workers raised the building for a few moments to perfectly adjust the rollers.
As you can imagine, the procedure was not slow and complex. It took a month and a great dose of precision in completing that delicate rotation. Moreover, every minimum mistake could have irreparably compromised the structure, with the risk of having to abandon the project and demolish everything.
During all this procedure, the users of gas, heat, electricity, water and sewers were never interrupted, and there were no damage to the ducts of any plan of the building. But the most extraordinary thing was certainly the fact that The 600 employees of the company entered and left the building thanks to a mobile bridge that connected the sidewalk to the entrance. According to some testimonies, there was not even a movement inside, a detail that confirms once more the extraordinary ability of the team that made the fact possible.
