After watching the movie Semi-Pro the other day, I tried to recall where I had seen lamella roof structures like the one shown in the movie. After noticing the roof in the gym scenes in the movie it took very little investigation to find out where the movie was made: Los Angeles Fire Department Training Facility adjacent to Dodger Stadium.
I know I have also seen lamella roofs here in San Francisco over the years but have not been able to recall in which buildings exactly. Maybe our readers can help. The only one I can remember now is the beautiful lamella ceiling structure at Mollie Stone's supermarket on California Street, a nice interior for those of us who look up.
Another stunning example of a lamella roof is the Discovery Bowl in Ventura, CA.
In 1908, Friedrich Zollinger, the city planning director of Merseburg, Germany, invented the lamella long span framing system. It was in response to the housing demand that occurred at that time as it was a simple and quick framing system that yielded many benefits. Lamella (the Latin feminine plural is lamellae) refers to anything lightweight, thin, and flat. Most notably in biology it refers to the vertical membranes at the underside of mushrooms and to the shell of univalve mollusks, for instance. Zollinger adapted the name for his new system which included the following characteristics:
- long spans with no columns
- 40%less material (most made of wood)
- small pieces
- openings were easily accomplished
- prefabricated
- no crane necessary
Initially Zollinger configured the system, sometimes referred to as the Zollinger system, in a gothic shaped roof line with two framed upper floors as seen below. A finished example exists in Bad Saarow, Germany.
Another example in current day Germany is the construction of an assembly plant for the Reichart Holtzbautechnik Corporation, demonstrating the prefab nature of small pieces assembled in an economical way by hand. It establishes a certain visual ambiguity:
I still have not jogged my memory enough to where I have seen lamella roofs in San Francisco. It has been mostly in auto repair shops in the South of Market neighborhood,but I can’t remember for sure.
After asking my computer it turns out though that in 1932 Julia Morgan designed a new facility for the YWCA on Clay Street, which was later remodeled by LDA Architects and shown below. It involved a small multipurpose room with a lamella roof:
Another example is an interesting fund-raising effort going on in Gonzales, Texas, to save the lamella roof of the historic 1952 Edwards High School gym (below).
The history of Edwards High School goes back to the days of segregation as evidenced by the town square placard.
The current proposal is to save Edwards High School and its lamella roof as historical remembrance and to honor the people of Gonzales during the previous Black History month. I thought it was an interesting story.
A few other lamella roof/ceiling examples:
Shown above is an anonymous industrial lamella ceiling structure similar to those I have seen over the years in San Francisco. Also shown is an interesting detail of a lamella foundation connection.
And finally, some lamella structures of materials other than of wood. One is the original steel roofed Houston Astrodome. Skylights were installed in the voids rather than solid roofing material:
Pier Luigi Nervi, the famous Italian engineer, designed a concrete derivation of the traditional lamella roof structure with his own interpretation for this beautiful 1950 European airplane hangar:
I would love to hear from folks about other lamella locations here in the Bay Area.
Blog post written by David Tritt, Senior Architect.
