YEAR IN REVIEW 1997: ARCHITECTURE

BRIDGES (For Notable Civil Engineering Projects, see Table.) The spectacular recent triumph of the cable-stayed bridge was overshadowed in 1996 by the resurgence of the suspension bridge. Several record-breaking examples of the latter were either completed or were close to it. Suspension bridges--those with a curved, usually steel, cable slung between two towers and anchored back behind them--traditionally produce the longest spans. They support the deck from vertical hanger cables off the main cable. The cable-stay, where the cables radiate out in straight lines directly from the tower to the deck, had begun to challenge the suspension design for medium-length bridges. The main span lengths of cable-stays had now reached once unbelievable 856 m (1 m = 3.28 ft). Suspension bridges such as the Tsing Ma in Hong Kong, the Great Belt's (Storeblt's) East Bridge in Denmark, and Akashi Kaikyo in Japan, all currently taking final shape, were, however, even longer. Tsing Ma, which, when completed in 1997 would connect Hong Kong with its new airport on Lantau Island, was 1,377 m long and carried a dual three-lane highway as well as the new airport railway on a lower deck. The Great Belt, which would help link Copenhagen, on the island of Zealand, to mainland Europe, was even longer at 1,624 m. Cables for this bridge were finished in November, in record time, through the use of a new computer-controlled "spinning" system that promised to halve the cost of fabricating suspension cable. The Great Belt would be the longest in the world when it opened in 1998. Almost immediately, however, an even longer bridge, Japan's Akashi, would take the record with a stunning 1,991-m-long central span. By late 1996 cables and decks had been completed, and the 10-year-long construction program was scheduled to finish in 1998. Bridge building action was becoming increasingly significant in the Pacific area. Apart from Japan, China was coming to the fore. A 990-m dual two-lane road bridge was completed across the Chang Jiang (Yangtze River) at Sandouping between Yichang and Chongqing. The bridge linked the two sides of the huge Three Gorges Dam project, which was well under way just upstream. Construction began on an even bigger Yangtze bridge, the Jiangyin. With a 1,385-m span, it would be the fourth largest in the world when completed in 1999. It would not use spinning construction, where the wires are laid one by one in the air, but would employ a preformed-cables method favoured by the Japanese. Also nearing completion in China was the Humen Bridge, an 888-m-long suspension bridge across the Pearl River at the so-called Tiger's Mouth (Boca Tigris) downstream from Guangzhou (Canton). It was not only one of the country's first suspension bridges but also part of a longer link across the river estuary that included several kilometres of viaduct and a 260-m concrete box span, also a record length. Increasingly, the main bridge was merely part of a very long link. Akashi, for example, was part of three very long links to Shikoku Island from Japan's "mainland" island, Honshu. The Great Belt's suspension bridge was part of an overall viaduct, concrete bridge, and tunnel link. In Scandinavia work was also well under way for the long resund connection between Copenhagen and western Sweden, which again included tunnels, as well as a concrete viaduct totaling 12 km (7.5 mi). Included was an artificial island and a cable-stayed bridge. In the U.K. the 5.2-km (3.2-mi) second crossing of the Severn Estuary with a 456-m-long central span became part of the country's longest connection in the summer. (ADRIAN LEE GREEMAN) This article updates bridge. BUILDINGS (For Notable Civil Engineering Projects, see Table.) Major developments during 1996 included the topping out of the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. At 452 m (1 m = 3.28 ft), the twin towers were, at least temporarily, the tallest buildings in the world. Construction also began on other buildings that would be more than 375 m in height. The 420-m-high Jin Mao development in Shanghai was under construction, and plans were under way for Millennium towers in Tokyo and London, at 840 m and 385 m, respectively. The former would be a quantum leap in building heights if it was built. Construction was under way near Paris for the 80,000-seat Stade de France for the 1998 World Cup. Of particular interest was the flat annular disklike roof to be suspended 45 m above ground level from 18 slender steel pylons. The pylons were situated behind the upper tier of seats and projected through holes in the steel-framed roof, which was supported from the pylons by sloping steel cables. The roof would extend as far as 69 m inward from the pylons and 25 m on the outside. The inner part of the disk would be clad with translucent glass to avoid light contrast between sky and roof. At Alexandria, Egypt, a monumental (design life of 200 years) library was being built. This area was known for its difficult ground conditions, both for construction and for the design of foundations. Consequently, the building design featured four levels below ground level and up to six floors above. The high water table in the porous strata on which the building was situated made exclusion of water during construction difficult, and the completed structure had to be designed against flotation. The basement wall took the form of a reinforced-concrete diaphragm wall, extending down 35 m and built by placing the concrete in a trench excavated in the ground and filled with bentonite mud. In order to support the building and prevent flotation, some 700 reinforced-concrete piles up to 1.5 m in diameter were bored down to a depth of 37 m. Owing to the corrosive nature of the groundwater, all construction in contact with the ground had to be carefully designed and built to ensure the intended design life. The superstructure of the glass hall at the Tokyo International Forum was lens-shaped in plan, about 207 m long by 32 m wide at the centre and nearly 60 m high. While the structure was of large scale, the engineers sought to keep individual components small in order to produce a delicate total building. The roof was carried on two columns situated 124 m apart on the long axis. The upper side was nominally flat and glass-clad, and the structure supporting it was made up of steel ribs up to 12.5 m deep, much like the hull of a ship. Within this were compression and tension members providing strength both for carrying the weight and for the lateral wind load from the walls. The glass-clad walls were carried on vertical mullions 10.5 m apart that took the form of light trusses spanning vertically up to 32.5 m to carry the wind loads on the walls. An interesting new concept of grid shells for lightweight roofs was developed in Germany. Spherical and irregular doubly curved surfaces are impossible to modularize totally. Through the use of a quadrangular mesh with members of equal length, however, these shapes can be formed, provided that the panel shapes are allowed to vary from square to diamond-shaped. The system provides for the panel side members to be joined at the ends to allow in-plane rotation and, at the same time, enable clamping of continuous bracing cables on the diagonals, which are necessary to maintain the geometry. Glass-clad roofs with spans as large as 33 m were constructed in this way, using members one metre in length. (GEOFFREY M. PINFOLD) This article updates building construction. DAMS (For Notable Civil Engineering Projects, see Table.) More than 1,100 dams were under construction throughout the world during 1996. The leading countries were China (270), Turkey (173), Japan (134), South Korea (134), India (77), Spain (50), Italy (46), the U.S. (37), Romania (36), and Iran (27). Privatization of power generation and its impact on dam building was under way in many countries. Zimbabwe was inviting private investment to start the Batokan Gorge Dam, which was to supply 600 MW on the Zambezi River. Mexico was looking for private capital to develop its two Temascal dams, which would add 200 MW to the nation's system. In Turkey construction began on the Ermenek Dam, designed to be 190 m high and generate 1,022 GW-hr. Turkey and Syria were having a dispute over the allocation of the waters of the Euphrates River. Syria demanded that Turkey halt work on the Birecik Dam. The dispute was intensified because of the reduction of river flow by Turkey to allow repairs at Ataturk Dam, with its 24,000 MW plant. Syria was also pursuing an aggressive dam-building program. Just completed was the Thawrah Dam on the Snobar River, with a reservoir that would hold 98 million cu m and irrigate 9,600 ha. Syria was also nearing completion of the Khahour Dam, which would irrigate 55,000 ha and store 600 million cu m of water. (1 ha = 2.47 ac; 1 cu m = 35.3 cu ft.) Iran completed its largest-volume dam, the Karkheh on the river of the same name. The 127-m-high dam would supply irrigation water to 220,000 ha and produce 400 MW of power. In India construction was continuing on the Sardar Sarovar Dam despite protests regarding the resettlement of people from the reservoir area. The government considered the need of water for irrigation to be paramount. Of China's 270 large dams under construction, 15 were designed to be more than 100 m high. The huge Three Gorges project on the Chang Jiang (Yangtze River) was running ahead of schedule. The Chinese claimed that all the environmental objections to the dam were being satisfied and that the benefits would be much greater than originally envisioned by the planners. The river diversion was expected to take place in October 1997, a year earlier than planned, and the entire project was scheduled to be completed by the year 2009. By the end of 1996, China had more than 20,000 large dams in operation. In Malaysia the long-awaited Bakun Dam was started during the year by the award of the construction contract. The dam was to be 205 m high and would produce 2,400 MW of power. It was scheduled to be completed in 2002. In Portugal the Algueva Dam on the Guadiana River would provide 240 MW and was to impound what would be Europe's largest reservoir. Financial and environmental problems cast doubt, however, as to whether the construction would proceed on schedule. In Nigeria the Kafin Zaki Dam was under construction. It was to have a reservoir capacity of 2,500 cu m. In the United States 37 dams were under construction, and 9 new hydroelectric plants were placed in operation, the largest of which was Rocky Mountain, with an installed capacity of 848 MW at a cost in excess of $1 billion. As compared with the 1960s, when 1,675 dams were built, only 63 had been constructed in the 1990s as of the end of 1996. (T.W. MERMEL) This article updates dam. ROADS (For Notable Civil Engineering Projects, see Table.) Growing economic activity in many less-developed parts of the world led to the announcement in 1996 of many projects for new roads and highways. The trend of recent years toward the use of private-sector financing and the collection of tolls continued, although automated toll-collection systems remained unproven. The longest highway-construction project under way in the world was the Indus Highway in Pakistan. Covering a total distance of 1,200 km (1 km = 0.6 mi), the highway runs along the valley of the Indus River from Kotri in the south to Peshawar in the north. The first two phases of the project, covering 767 km and costing $220 million, were to be completed by 1997. In India another large project to upgrade 330 km of existing roads from two to four lanes was announced. The largest project to be funded by the Asian Development Bank, it would cost $220 million and include work in five states: Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana, Rajasthan, and West Bengal. The expected increase in road building in the Middle East began in 1996, with projects announced and under way in the United Arab Emirates. In Dubayy the municipality planned to spend $260 million on roads, the highest budget allocation in its history. Abu Dhabi began work on a $272 million project to upgrade the road link to Dubayy to an international standard divided highway. The Silk Road, which was established about 2,000 years ago to connect the ancient civilizations of Rome and China, could once again become an international highway. Under a program promoted by the International Road Federation (IRF) and reflecting the growing importance of trade in the Caucasus region, the plan would involve a regionwide improvement in road connections in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakstan, and neighbouring countries. Other countries in the former Soviet Union were developing their road networks. In Russia plans were under way to upgrade the road linking the two main cities, Moscow and St. Petersburg, to be financed by tolls. Both Ukraine and Belarus were building new expressway connections to their western borders with Poland. In Eastern Europe the aftermath of war in former Yugoslavia had left a legacy of damaged roads. Studies were under way in Croatia to develop its road network to reflect its new independent status. Bosnia and Herzegovina estimated that it required $3 billion for major infrastructure repairs and was hoping to attract international aid and private finance; 1,000 km of its roads, along with 70 bridges and 20 tunnels, were destroyed in the civil war. The development of a true highway network in Western Europe took a step closer to reality with the launch of a continentwide program called "Eurovia." Promoted by the IRF, it intended to reflect the growing international trade in the region and the importance of integration with other transport modes instead of the country-by-country development that had occurred previously. The world's most northerly road project was under way in Norway. This 28.5-km highway would provide a direct connection from the mainland to the island of Magerya, Europe's northernmost point and an increasingly popular tourist attraction. The project involved the construction of the world's longest undersea road tunnel, 6.8 km long, and would be completed in 1998. At the end of 1996, the world's first all-electronic toll highway was approaching completion. Highway 407 in Toronto was built ahead of schedule, but the commissioning of its advanced electronic toll-collection system, in which drivers would pay for road use through transponders mounted on the windshield instead of with cash, was proving difficult. (RUSS SWAN) This articles updates road. The Great Man-Made River One of the largest water-transmission projects in the world, the Great Man-Made River (GMR) in Libya was aimed at bringing high-quality sweet water from underground aquifers deep in the Sahara to the populated areas along the Libyan coast for drinking water and irrigation. The project had several arms, some of which would be under construction until about 2007. Water was first discovered in the Al-Kufrah area in Libya's southeastern desert in the 1970s during exploration drilling for oil. Initially, the government planned to set up a large-scale agricultural project in the desert where the water was found, but plans were changed in the early 1980s, and designs were prepared for a massive pipeline to the coast. In 1983 the South Korean company Dong Ah was awarded a contract for the construction, and in 1991 the first arm of the pipeline, known as GMR1, was completed. Hundreds of water wells were drilled at two fields, Tazirbu and Sarir, where water was pumped up from an underground reservoir at a depth of between 80 and 400 m (260 and 1,300 ft). The water, which did not need purification, was then transported by gravity through a 1,900-km (1,200-mi) pipeline to a holding reservoir at Ajdabiya and to the coastal cities of Surt and Banghazi. The pipeline itself was the largest in the world with a diameter of 4 m (13 ft). It was being manufactured on-site in Libya at a factory that had been built especially for the purpose. The pipe, manufactured in 7-m (23-ft) sections, was made up of layers of concrete and steel plates, and the sections were laid by specially made cranes, which were capable of lifting as much as 200 metric tons. Some 13,000 people were working in Libya on the project at any one time, 2,500 of them in the pipeline-construction plant. GMR1 was capable of transporting 2 million cu m (70.6 million cu ft) of water per day. In 1996 only a quarter of the capacity was used, but volumes were expected to increase with the completion of an ongoing program to drill more water wells. A second pipeline, GMR2 in western Libya, was completed in September 1996 and started supplying Libya's capital, Tripoli, with drinking water from three well fields in the Jabal Nafusah mountain region. Additional well drilling and reservoir construction was scheduled to be completed in 1999. The pipeline's capacity was to be 2.5 million cu m (88.3 million cu ft) of water a day, but only some 600,000-1 million cu m (21 million-35 million cu ft) would be needed for drinking water in Tripoli. The additional capacity in GMR1 and 2 was to be used for agriculture. For this purpose the GMR project included large-scale investments in irrigation infrastructure, which had yet to be started at the year's end. (CHARLOTTE BLUM) TUNNELS (For Notable Civil Engineering Projects, see Table.) The most significant developments in regard to tunnels in 1996 concerned their operation rather than their construction. Faith in tunnels as important public facilities was shaken when, on the night of November 18, fire broke out on a heavy truck being transported on a freight train shuttle through the 50-km-long Channel Tunnel. Instead of continuing the journey to the U.K. terminal--the official safety procedure--the operator of the shuttle stopped the train in the tunnel about 13 km from the French portal. The fire, exacerbated by the forced ventilation system, disabled the train by burning through the overhead power supply and caused extensive damage to the concrete lining of the tunnel and its services and track. The 31 passengers and 3 shuttle crew evacuated to safety into the central service tunnel, and firefighting crews from both France and the U.K. had the fire extinguished by the following morning. Eurotunnel, the company that built and operated the Channel Tunnel, had been successfully increasing its market share of the cross-Channel transport business before the incident. Limited services continued through the undamaged north tunnel, but the loss of business during the busy end-of-year holidays shook Eurotunnel's already fragile financial situation. It was expected to take several weeks or months to repair the damaged tunnel and resume normal operations. Activity during 1996 centred mainly on the continuation of projects already in progress, including subway (metro) projects in many cities throughout the world, the undersea Trans-Tokyo Bay highway project in Japan, and the regular requirement for water supply, sewerage, and utility tunnels in urban areas. The concentration of tunneling activity during 1996 remained in the Far East. Tunneling on the Los Angeles subway project remained embroiled in controversy and scandal. As work was beginning to return to normal after the sacking of the contractor associated with the Hollywood Boulevard tunnel collapse in June 1995, the new senior management of the reorganized Metropolitan Transportation Authority was accused of corruption in the evaluation and award of the $65 million contract to manage construction of the new $670 million Eastside extension. Other major tunneling jobs that encountered trouble during the year included the Athens subway. There tunneling was suspended for investigation into why the tunnel-boring machines engaged on the project were inducing excessive settlement or failing to reach optimum progress rates in the prevailing ground conditions. On the brighter side, tunneling gained a high profile on some exciting new projects. More than 22 km of single- and twin-tube tunneling under the streets of London as well as through the chalk hills of the Kent countryside were included on the 110-km Channel Tunnel railway link, the construction and operation of which was awarded to a privately financed consortium in early 1996. With the Ted Williams Tunnel under Boston Harbor completed in 1995, work continued on Boston's $10 billion project, in which 13 km (8 mi) of tunnels and roads were being built through the heart of the city. The trend toward more and more tunneling in cities around the world to utilize the environmental, social, and technical advantages of underground space was confirmed in 1996. To illustrate the trend, London Electricity had completed its first man-entry electricity cable tunnel beneath the streets of London in 1990. By the end of 1996, it had committed to more than 30 km of these cost-effective, safe, easily operated, and efficient alternatives to the open-trench burial of electricity cables. (SHANI WALLIS) This article updates tunnel. Military Affairs Arms Control and Disarmament. When India vetoed the draft CTBT at the UN Conference on Disarmament (CD) in August because it did not commit the five acknowledged nuclear powers--the United States, Russia, China, France, and the United Kingdom--to a timetable for complete nuclear disarmament, it looked as if the 40-year effort to ban all nuclear explosions had failed again. The treaty was submitted directly to the UN General Assembly, however, where the CD's consensus requirement did not apply, and it was approved on September 10. The CTBT was opened for signature on September 24, with U.S. Pres. Bill Clinton the first to sign. Before it could enter into force, the treaty had to be signed by the 44 states that had either nuclear power or research reactors. By the end of the year, 131 nations had signed, including 41 of the required 44. India led the holdouts, joined by another "threshold" nuclear power, Pakistan, which said it would not sign unless India did. In July the International Court of Justice gave an ambiguous and nonbinding ruling that the use or threat of nuclear weapons in war should be outlawed but that their use in self-defense would not violate international law. The five nuclear weapons powers signed the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, but the U.S. said it was unable to support a similar zone in Southeast Asia because it believed that the treaty would inhibit freedom of the seas. Of the 53 African nations, 45 signed the Pelindaba Treaty establishing an African Nuclear Weapons Free Zone, as did all the nuclear powers. The U.S. Senate passed a resolution of ratification of the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks II (START-II) treaty in January, but the Russian Federal Assembly (parliament) refused to take it up, with many legislators expressing the opinion that in 1993 Russia had been too hasty in signing what they considered to be a disadvantageous agreement. Both countries continued to cut their strategic nuclear forces in conformity with the earlier START-I treaty. All former Soviet nuclear weapons were repatriated from Ukraine by June 1, but Belarus continued to balk at allowing the last 18 SS-25 mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles to leave the country despite an earlier pledge that they would be out by the end of the year. The number of states ratifying the Chemical Weapons Convention reached 65; as a result, the treaty would enter into force in April 1997. While neither of the countries admitting to having the largest stockpiles of chemical weapons--Russia and the U.S.--had ratified the treaty, as signatories they would be required to abide by its provisions. Conventional weapons were in the arms control spotlight much of the year, and while the first review conference of the 1980 Inhumane Weapons Convention failed to ban antipersonnel land mines, the antimine movement gained momentum. (See Special Report.) Negotiators at the review conference of the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty agreed to relax temporarily some of the limits placed on the numbers of weapons Russia could deploy in northwest Russia and in its troubled Caucasus region. United States. (For Approximate Strengths of Selected Regular Armed Forces, see Table.) Legislation covering defense spending in two fiscal years was passed by the Congress in 1996: a revised defense authorization bill for fiscal year 1996 to replace the one vetoed by President Clinton in December 1995 and the authorization and appropriations bills for fiscal year 1997. In both cases the Republican-controlled Congress gave the military more than Clinton had requested. The revised fiscal year 1996 bill set defense spending at $265 billion, $7 billion more than the president had wanted, but it dropped the requirement to deploy a national antiballistic missile system by 2003 that had prompted Clinton's veto of the original bill. The fiscal year 1997 defense authorization bill, which Clinton signed in September, provided $265.6 billion, $11.5 billion more than the administration had requested. While some in the Congress wanted to reopen the B-2 stealth bomber production line, President Clinton directed that B-2 procurement funds added to the fiscal year 1996 budget by Congress be used to modernize the current fleet and bring the operational fleet to 21 aircraft by upgrading the B-2 test-flight vehicle. In its second and third trials, the army's Theater High-Altitude Area Defense system failed to intercept another missile. The program was cut back by the Pentagon in a move that drew the ire of a number of Republicans in Congress. During the year the navy christened its first Seawolf submarine and the last of the Los Angeles-class attack submarines that preceded it, as well as the 18th and last Trident ballistic missile submarine. Tragedy involving military forces overseas struck twice during the year. On April 3 an air force transport jet carrying Commerce Secretary Ron Brown (see OBITUARIES) and 34 other people crashed while attempting to land near Dubrovnik, Croatia. In the subsequent investigation, 2 generals and 14 other officers were censured. A terrorist bomb exploded on June 25 outside a barracks housing air force personnel in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 19 and injuring hundreds. An inquiry faulted the local U.S. commander as well as his superiors. Revelations that as many as 20,000 U.S. military personnel might have been exposed to nerve gas when an Iraqi weapons dump was blown up during the 1991 Persian Gulf War prompted renewed investigations into the Gulf War syndrome, a puzzling set of health complaints by some veterans of that action. The chief of naval operations, Adm. Jeremy Boorda (see OBITUARIES), took his own life on May 16 after allegations that he had worn unearned attachments for valour on two Vietnam War ribbons. He was succeeded by Adm. Jay Johnson. Carol Mutter was promoted to lieutenant general in the Marine Corps in March, the first woman to achieve three-star rank. Adm. J. Paul Reason, who took command of the Atlantic Fleet in May, became the navy's first African-American four-star admiral. William Perry announced that he would step down as secretary of defense; William Cohen, a former Republican senator, was named as his replacement. The army began a service-wide investigation of sexual harassment after revelations that instructors at two training centres, the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland and Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri, had fraternized with, raped, and sexually abused female recruits. An army medic was dismissed from the service after a court-martial convicted him of disobeying a lawful order when he refused to wear a UN beret while serving on a peacekeeping mission in former Yugoslavia. Two marines and an air force sergeant were also court-martialed when they refused to have their blood screened for a military DNA bank, a program established to make it easier to identify future battlefield casualties. Federal courts in California, Washington, and the District of Columbia ruled in favour of the government in three cases in which servicemen who admitted they were gay had been discharged for violating the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy on homosexuals. One case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which refused to hear it. Art, Antiques, and Collections The art market in 1996 continued to rebound from the 1990 crash as auction sales remained buoyant. The major auction houses Christie's and Sotheby's had the most success for good paintings in the middle market range ($300,000-$2 million), but the sky-high prices seen in the late 1980s showed no sign of reappearing. Asian art, which experienced a boom, was showcased in March at the second International Asian Art Fair in New York City. The major exhibition "Splendors of Imperial China" made a limited tour of the U.S., while Taiwanese protesters argued that many of their treasures were too fragile to tour. The Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg announced the discovery and exhibition of still more artworks that had been removed from Germany during World War II. The important cache of prints and drawings included one of Vincent van Gogh's most famous images, "Boats at Saintes-Maries." The issue of repatriating the artworks was left unresolved. In London scandal tainted the work of British painter Ben Nicholson. No buyers could be found for any of his paintings at the spring modern art sales in London after word leaked out that a ring of forgers had doctored records pertaining to his work. The media circus surrounding the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis estate sale aroused the general public's interest in art, antiques, and collectibles. Such "Camelot" mementos as faux pearls and rocking chairs brought prices usually associated with Old Master paintings. The international auction market received a proposal for French auction reform (to take effect in 1998) that would end the monopoly French auction houses had held on French sales for more than 400 years. The reform would allow foreign auction houses such as Christie's and Sotheby's to hold sales on French soil. As a result, important property from French estates would not necessarily be auctioned abroad and would therefore be more likely to remain in French hands. Two major British museums, London's Tate Gallery and the National Gallery, orchestrated a grand art exchange in order to enhance their respective collections; 52 works of 19th-century art would leave the Tate for the National Gallery, which would send the Tate 14 of its 20th-century paintings, including Claude Monet's monumental "Water Lilies" (after 1916). The end of the art year coincided with the closing of an exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History, New York City, of the Codex Leicester, a notebook of brilliant scientific musings by Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci. (REBECCA KNAPP)