The fascinating tale of an 11,000 ton building that was rotated and moved while people worked in it

Technology has made a number of tasks such as the construction of dams and making roads by cutting through entire mountains look simple today, but it all started with someone using innovative measures to pull off things that seemed impossible. In one such feat, back in 1929, an 11,000-ton building in Indiana was rotated 90 degrees while 600 employees in the building continued working without any interruptions. Between 12 October to 14 November, 1930, a building in Indianapolis, Indiana was moved exactly 90 degrees in a fashion that the gas, water, electricity, sewage, and phone lines continued to function without an issue.

Phone lines were one of the main reasons why they decided to attempt this task without asking the employees to leave the building. The building was home to the Indiana Bell Telephone Company and was first designed and built back in 1907. When the company realized that the building needed an upgrade in size, the architect Bernard Vonnegut I's son, Kurt Vonnegut Senior suggested moving the building to give space for a larger structure.

They decided against demolishing the building as it would halt the services, affecting the entire city. This is why the decision to move the building was made by extending the utility pipes and making them very flexible. After this, the building was lifted by jacked and placed onto rollers which were then moved 16 meters south, rotated 30 degrees, and then moved 30 meters west. This procedure was repeated until it had been turned a total of 90 degrees and was facing downtown Meridian Street with each of these jacks being operated by a team of men. 

The workers also made a movable passage way that the employees would use to enter and exit the building while it was on the move. The employees at the time reported that they never felt that the building was moving. 

The move took around four weeks to complete and is still viewed as a monumental success, as the telephone services did not go down and workers did not have to take a break even once in the span of those four weeks.

In 1933, a new Indiana Bell Telephone building was completed and the old one was still right beside it. However, back in 1963, the building was completely demolished and later a new building was erected which stands to date.

The building was one of the very first buildings in the world to be displaced rather than demolished. Among buildings that later joined the list, names such as the Shubert Theater in Minneapolis, the Belle Tout Lighthouse in Sussex England, and the Empire Theater in New York are the most prominent.

Today, structure relocation is not as challenging as it once used to be as elevation of a whole structure is easily done by attaching a temporary steel framework under the structure to support it. A network of hydraulic jacks placed under the framework then moves the whole mass. This procedure is clearly inspired by the one successfully executed back in 1929.