N.Z. engineer restoring Californian landmark

Press, 27 March 1980, Page 20

N.Z. engineer restoring Californian landmark

By

JOHN HUTCHISON

in San Francisco

A New Zealander will be a key participant in the rehabilitation of one of San Francisco’s most treasured landmarks.

Peter Culley, once of Wellington. and an engineering graduate of the University of Canterbury, will do the structural studies for a $4O million project to restore the historic Ferry Building. The 90-year-old terminal and its tall clock tower withstood the 1906 earthquake which shook down most of San Francisco in one of the century’s greatest cataclysms. Once the Ferry Building was the heart of San Francisco’s passenger traffic with its Bay suburbs; the great bridges to Oakland and across the Golden Gate did not then exist.

“I want to do the Ferry Building,” said Mr Culley recently, coming down hard on the word, “want.” It marked his enthusiasm for taking part in the preservation of his adopted city’s rich architectural heritage. . In the 14 years he has lived in San Francisco he has been instrumental in the rescue of scores of old buildings which his surveys have shown to be worth preserving, economically and historically. But none has had the prestige or the challenge which the Ferry Building project offers. The old building stands on piling just off the heart of the citv’s- modern commercial

and financial district, which is built on land that was under water in the days of sail and the rush for California’s gold. Once a cavernous station for thousands of travellers daily, it fell empty when the last of the big ferry boats went out of service, made obsolete by the great new bridges. Then it was partitioned and remodelled into a warren .of small offices, many of them related to import and export, It is the headquarters now of the World Trade Centre and it houses the comfortable World Trade Club. When Peter Culley Associates completes its structural studies, a Southern California firm will renovate the building through an arrangement in which it will lease it from the city. It is proposed to remove some of the extra floors which were inserted into the original high - ceilinged, chandelierhung halls of the old terminal, to recreate some of its early Victorian splendour. Mr Culley’s firm is “basically in the nuts and bolts business of structural engineering,” he explains, “but it has its exciting aspects when fine old buildings are at stake.” ? He and his staff have developed a reputation for ingenuity in solving unusually difficult problems faced by contractors in this crowded, hilly city where buildings must be pinned securely to steep sites, adjacent property must be protected against subsidence on filled shoreline, sections and historic structures marked for rescue must be

brought up to modern safety standards without violation of their architectural values. The Culley firm is frequently employed by owners or prospective purchasers of older buildings which are subject to the city’s earthquake ordinances. Thousands of buildings are capped with old-fashioned overhanging cornices or hung with masonpr ornaments and balconies, which if shaken loose, can cause death in the street below. The structural engineers inspect such fixtures and make the reports on which corrective measures are taken. "We sometimes have to hire steelejacks to reach some of these features,” said Mr Culley. To the surprise of many, what look like carved masonry details often turn out to be hollow zinc forms, shaped and painted to resemble stone, and firmly attached. Mr Culley also does engineering studies for new construction, including at present a suburban development of 500 dwelling units. One of the more unusual recent contracts was to provide consulting services for the restoration of the downtown area of an old Western city of 75,000 population which retained its historic central buildings while developing a large car park underneath them.

Mr Culley, son of Mr and Mrs Alex Culley of Seatoun, Wellington, has been invited to present a paper at a symposium fin Wellington, in April, which is sponsored by Victoria University and the Historic Places Trust