IStructE - Centenary Website

1	Many people regard Imhotep as the first structural engineer, who designed the stepped pyramid of King Djoser in ancient Egypt.
2	The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel (USA) was opened in 1964 and is 37km long.
3	Soaring 509m above ground, the Taipei 101 Tower (Taiwan) has 101 stories above ground and five below ground level.
4	Opened in 1956, Lake Pontchartrain Causeway (USA) is the longest over water highway bridge in the world.
5	Completed in 1930, the Empire State Building (USA) stood as the world's tallest building for 40 years at 449m high.
6	Construction costs for The Bank of China Tower (Hong Kong) totaled HK$1,000m.
7	Axa-Royale Belge Tower (Belgium) has floors that are suspended with steel cables to the concrete construction on the roof.
8	The Freedom Tower at the World Trade Center (USA) is expected to be completed in 2009 at a cost of US$1.5-2 billion.
9	Aberfeldy Footbridge (Scotland), was the first "plastic" bridge with a main span of 63m.
10	The Burj al-Arab building (United Arab Emirates) contains over 70,000m2 of concrete and 9,000 tonnes of steel.
11	The world's narrowest office building is The Jack Chow Insurance office in Vancouver's Chinatown, measuing 1.8m in width.
12	The Pan-American Highway is 24,140 km long. It starts at Fairbanks, Alaska (USA) and finishes in Brasilia (Brazil).
13	The busiest cantilever bridge in the world is the Howrah bridge (India) carrying an average of 150,000 vehicles and four million pedestrians daily.
14	The Royal Festival Hall (UK) was the only permanent structure from the Festival of Britain in 1951.
15	Nagoya Station (Japan) is the largest train station in the world.
16	The largest film studio complex in the world is Ramoji Film City, Hyderabad (India) which opened in 1996 and measures 674 ha (1,666 acres).
17	Located in Toronto, Canada the CN Tower (1976) is considered the world's tallest complete man-made structure, standing at over 553 metres.
18	Completed in 1975, the Superdome in Louisiana (USA) was the largest domed structure in the world.
19	The Tacoma Narrows Bridge, nicknamed "Galloping Gertie" because of the unusual way it twisted and swayed bridge, collapsed on 7th November, 1940.
20	The highest rollercoaster on Earth is found at the Stratosphere in Las Vegas, USA. The hotel boasts the world's three highest thrill rides.
21	The world's fastest rollercoaster is the Kingda Ka at Six Flags Great Adventure, New Jersey, USA which can travel up to 206 kmh.
22	The world’s longest roller coasters is the Steel Dragon 2000, Nagashima Spa Land (Japan), at 2, 479m long.
23	The Millau Viaduct (France) is the tallest vehicular bridge in the world, with one pier's summit at 343m, slightly taller than the Eiffel Tower, and only 38m shorter than the Empire State Building.
24	The Tokyo Tower (Japan) is 332.6m tall, making it one of the world's highest self-supporting steel towers and the tallest man-made structure in Japan.
25	The worlds tallest residential building is Q1 on Australia's Gold Coast, at 323m.
26	30 St Mary Axe (2004), widely known as The Gherkin, is the City of London's (UK) tallest building.
27	The Chrysler Building, an art deco skyscraper in New York, USA is the tallest brick building in the world. An iconic part of the New York City skyline it has featured in numerous films.
28	The Akashi-Kaikyo Bridge (Japan) was opened in 1998 and is the longest cable-suspension bridge in the world.
29	Hell Gate Bridge in New York, USA was the first thousand-foot steel arch in 1916.
30	Eugene Freyssinet developed pre-stressed concrete in 1928, a major breakthrough in structural engineering, helping overcome the weakness of concrete structures in tension.
31	The first major concrete dams, Hoover (USA) and Grand Coulee (USA), which were both built in 1936, still exist today.
32	The Wanxian Bridge (China) has the longest concrete arch span in the world at 420m.
33	The longest steel arch in the world is the Lupu Bridge (China) at 550m Span.
34	Standing at 110 stories high, The Sears Tower in Chicago (USA), is the tallest building in North America and the third tallest building in the world.
35	The world's largest solar energy roof covers the exposition hall of the Floriade in Haarlemmermeer (Netherlands).
36	The largest traditional self-supporting domed igloo had an internal diameter of 7.36m and an internal height of 3.81m.
37	Grande Dixence, on the river Dixence in Switzerland, is the highest concrete dam in the world.
38	The Suite Vollard high rise apartment building (Brazil) is the only one of its kind in the world; each floor can rotate 360 degrees.
39	The only two man made structures visible from space are: The Pyramids of Giza (Egypt) and the more recently constructed, Hoover Dam (USA).
40	The Ice Hotel in Jukkasjarvi (Sweden), offers the ultimate in cold comfort: a building constructed out of ice where the average room temperature is -4°C.
41	Every year, an igloo hotel is built in Sweden that has the capacity to sleep 100 people.
42	The Mall of America, located in Bloomington, Minnesota (USA) is so big that it can hold 24,336 school buses.
43	The Sears Tower in Chicago, USA consists of nine framed tubes, which connects nine skyscrapers as one building and contains enough steel to build 50,000 automobiles.
44	The highest library in the world is located on the 60th floor of the JW Marriott Hotel in Shanghai (China) is over 230m above street level.
45	The Cinema dei Piccoli, built by Alfredo Annibali (Italy) in 1934 in Rome (Italy) is the world's smallest purpose built cinema in operation.
46	The first hand held, scientific electronic calculators appeared in 1972 at a cost of around US$500. After which time they became a widely used tool in structural engineering.
47	The world’s tallest free fall rollercoaster is The Giant Drop (Australia). The drop is 120m which is equivalent to a 39 storey building.
48	The Millennium Dome, London (UK) has 100m steel masts and covers 20 acres of ground floor space.
49	Canary Wharf‘s (UK) total weight is 1,000,016 kg.
50	Guy's Hospital in London (UK) is the tallest hospital in the world.
51	Torre Maritima was the first skyscraper in Barcelona (Spain).
52	The Eiffel Tower (France) was the highest structure in the world from 1889-1930.
53	The Sacre Coeur in Paris (France) rests on pillars 33m tall.
54	Puerta de Europa (Spain) stands for Door of Europe. The two towers lean towards each other at an angle of 15 degrees.
55	At 328m, The Sky Tower in Auckland (New Zealand) is the tallest tower in the Southern Hemisphere.
56	The South China Mall in Donngguan (China) is the world's largest shopping mall with an area of 892, 000 m2
57	The Sydney Opera House roof is covered with more than one million tiles imported from Sweden.
58	The BMW Tower in Munich (Germany) was designed as a huge four cylinder engine.
59	The Pentagon building in Washington (USA) is considered one of the largest office buildings in the world today. It covers 34 acres.
60	Washington National Cathedral in Washington (USA) took 83 years to complete.
61	74,000 tonnes of steel were used for the construction of the Sears Tower in Chicago.
62	The crown at the top of the Kronenhaus building in Frankfurt (Germany) is heated during the winter to prevent the forming of icicles.
63	The world's largest floating performance stage is in Singapore at Marina Bay. The floating stage measures 120m x 83m x 1.2m and is made of steel.
64	The Palm Jumeirah is an artificial island, the smallest of the three Palm Islands on the Jumeirah coastal area of the emirate of the Dubai (United Arab Emirates).
65	The Steel Dragon 2000 roller coaster at Nagashima Spaland, Japan, has a drop of 93.3m
66	In 1930 Professor Hardy Cross developed the moment distribution method, a structural analysis method to quickly determine the stresses of many complex structures.
67	The Top Thrill Dragster roller coaster at Cedar Point, Ohio (USA) is 128m tall
68	The Ultimate roller coaster at Lightwater Valley (UK) is 2.3km long.
69	The Dodonpa roller coaster in Japan reaches speeds of 106.8mph.
70	The Petronas Towers in Malaysia, which were completed in 1998, are 451.9m tall with 88 floors.
71	The Sears Tower in Chicago (USA), which was built in 1974, is 442m tall with 108 floors.
72	The Jin Mao Tower in Shanghai (China) which was built in 1998, is 420.5m tall with 88 floors.
73	Burj al-Arab in Dubai (United Arab Emirates), is the world's tallest hotel and the world's tallest fabric-covered structure.
74	The Sutong Bridge, a cable-stayed bridge in China which was built in 2008, is 1088m long.
75	The Finger Wharf or Woolloomooloo Wharf in Woolloomooloo Bay, Sydney (Australia) is the largest timbered-piled building in the world.
76	The Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), founded in 1962, is a United States Department of Energy National Laboratory operated by Stanford University. The 3.2km long underground accelerator is the longest linear accelerator in the world, and is claimed to be the world's straightest object. The above-ground klystron gallery atop the beam line is the longest building in the United States. (about.com)