Hangar One

Hangar One is one of the world's largest freestanding structures, covering at the Moffett Field airship hangars site at Moffett Field, California (near Mountain View), in Santa Clara County of the southern San Francisco Bay Area, California.The massive hangar has long been one of the most recognizable landmarks of California's Silicon Valley. An early example of mid-century modern architecture, it was built in the 1930s as a naval airship hangar for the USS Macon.Design and constructionDesigned by German air ship and structural engineer Dr. Karl Arnstein, Vice President and Director of Engineering for the Goodyear Zeppelin Corporation of Akron, Ohio, in collaboration with Wilbur Watson Associates Architects and Engineers of Cleveland, Ohio, Hangar One is constructed on a network of steel girders sheathed with galvanized steel. It rests firmly upon a reinforced pad anchored to concrete pilings. The floor covers 8 acres and can accommodate six (6) (360 feet x 160 feet) American football fields. The airship hangar measures 1133ft long and 308ft wide. The building has an aerodynamic architecture. Its walls curve inward to form an elongated approximate catenary form 198 feet (60 m) high. The clam-shell doors were designed to reduce turbulence when the Macon moved in and out on windy days. The "orange peel" doors, weighing 200 short tons (180 metric tons) each, are moved by their own motors operated via an electrical control panel.