Seismic base isolation with rubber bearings
Aislamiento sísmico de base con apoyos de caucho
- Date
- 1969 · confidence medium
- Place
- Skopje, North Macedonia
- Credited to
- Swiss engineers (Pestalozzi School) after the 1963 earthquake
- Field
- Tools
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
The building rests on rubber bearings with low horizontal stiffness that isolate the structure from ground motion and reduce the acceleration it receives. The Pestalozzi School, funded by Switzerland after the 1963 earthquake, is the first building with this system.
The idea of isolating buildings was proposed from 1870 (Touaillon, San Francisco) and 1909 (Calantarients, UK); Pestalozzi is cited as the first built rubber isolation, though other authors cite earlier buildings.
What it led to
- seismically isolated hospitals and museums in Japan, the US and New Zealand
- lead-rubber and friction-pendulum bearings
- displacement-based seismic codes