Decades after the construction of a downtown Seattle skyscraper long-touted as one of the most structurally sound buildings on the West Coast, architects are now admitting they are just as confused by the Rainier Tower as we are.
“Planting a 41-story block of concrete on top of an inverted pyramid … of course that doesn’t make any fucking sense!” said Steve Nederson, an architecture professor at the University of Washington. “TIMBERRRRRRRRRrrrrrr.”
According to Joseph Mandrake, who was foreman for the tower’s construction team, the whole building is a giant mistake.
“I received the master blueprints from lead architect Minoru Yamasaki and began working as diligently as I always did,” said Mandrake, now 73. “But, five months into construction, I realized I had been holding his blueprints upside down.”
Holding back tears, Mandrake continued.
“When the tower never fell down, we decided to keep going and hope no one would notice,” Mandrake said. “Everyone just assumed it was a one of those risky experimental architecture projects that everyone associates with the late seventies.”
Downtown Seattle workers who long suspected the building was unsafe despite no background in architecture found the report’s findings validating if nothing else.
“I knew it,” said Chase Baldin as he turned to a coworker. “Told you!”
