Architect and engineer . quakes annually to Tokyo. Everypublic room has been lavishly decorated with carved Nikko stone, sus-pended over the heads of those underneath. The stone is soft and fragile,and literally full of pockets and perforations, suggestive of a well-knowncheese. Many of the pockets are filled with loose, disintegrated granules,sufficient in quantity to fill a goblet. No one can forecast when thethree factors of inadequate foundation, seismic action and suspended,fragile Nikko stone, will create a tragic sensation; only extra precautioncan prevent an otherwise inevitable catast
Architect and engineer . quakes annually to Tokyo. Everypublic room has been lavishly decorated with carved Nikko stone, sus-pended over the heads of those underneath. The stone is soft and fragile,and literally full of pockets and perforations, suggestive of a well-knowncheese. Many of the pockets are filled with loose, disintegrated granules,sufficient in quantity to fill a goblet. No one can forecast when thethree factors of inadequate foundation, seismic action and suspended,fragile Nikko stone, will create a tragic sensation; only extra precautioncan prevent an otherwise inevitable catastrophe. The theatre within the Imperial Hotel will seat one thousand people;it is filled with Nikko stone—held in suspension; its balcony railingsconsist of stone embattlements, twenty inches high; two six-foot-squarestone vases impede the balcony entrances. Two great Arizona cacti ofstone, fashioned into stacked balls and cubes pierce the solemn at-mosphere like spectres. The public would not be admited to this theatre. Evei-y facade is laininatcd iirofusely with sUjne. unfit for use—soft, fratiile, full of large holes—andcarvings of revived prehistoric patterns if it were outside of Japan; it is devoid of all fundamental essentialswhereby human safety is made reasonably secure; it has no secondaryexits; a stampede would spell holocaust. A banquet hall above the theatre will seat eight hundred. Its wallsare of l)rick and stone (all large public rooms of the Imperial Hotel areof brick and stone, corresponding with the exterior elevations). Its longwide balconies of masonry are invisibly supported by catilever floors,upon which masonry piers are at a distance of six feetbeyond the supporting walls; these piers are designed to receive the endsof a fifty-foot, steep roof span, transferring the roof loads onto the canti-lever balconies. The swimming pool in the basement, under the large central dining-room (first floor), is filled to capacity with water which can
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