During the first phase of a $30 million construction project to restore the Rothko Chapel and expand its campus in Houston, engineers made a discovery that will add four months and $1.1 million to the rehabilitation of the 1971 structure, which is home to 14 monumental paintings by Mark Rothko.
The Chapel’s concrete masonry walls, which stand some 25 feet tall, were originally built without steel reinforcement—an acceptable practice in the 1970s, when Philip Johnson, Howard Barnstone, and Eugene Aubry designed it. If such a structure were built today, contemporary codes would require that the concrete masonry units (CMUs) be reinforced with steel rebar to withstand lateral wind loads of 130 miles per hour.
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