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Buildings 1419, 1420, 1429, 1430 [AC&W Operations Buildings, Types 3 and 4; Power Station; Technical Supply Building]
Holabird Root & Burgee, Chicago
Standardized design of October 1949. Accepted as completed in 1955-1957.

Buildings 1419 and 1420 are the primary structures within a mid-1950s ADC command and control cluster that also includes the ancillary buildings 1429 and 1430. Designed in October 1949 by Chicago firm Holabird Root & Burgee (1949a, 1949b, 1949c), the two structures are standardized. Designated in the drawings as an operations building, type 4 station (Building 1419), and, as an operations building, type 3 station (Building 1420), the pair defined the command and control core for the AC&W, 1950-1958. An operations building, type 2 station, also designed in 1949 by Holabird Root & Burgee, served as a parallel command and control structure at each of the 85 AC&W radar stations. The operations buildings, types 2, 3, and 4, foreshadowed the next generation SAGE command and control facilities. Operations buildings, type 2, were sometimes augmented and reused for the BUIC II program. The AC&W command and control unit operated with primarily manually gathered and analyzed air defense information, with manually made command decision. The SAGE and BUIC II command and control units used digital computers to receive, electronically compile, and organize air defense information, with command decisions still manually made, but computer-assisted. SAGE additionally offered sophisticated electronic control of weapons deployment as it evolved.

The ADC erected the pairs of AC&W command and control type 3 and 4 buildings sequentially, usually with a small group of ancillary structures, and simultaneously with the build-out of the type 2 buildings and permanent radar squadrons’ facilities across the U.S. The first command and control pair went up at McChord AFB in 1950-1951, with 11 AC&W centers under construction by 1952. Initially SAGE was anticipated to be operational in 1955, replacing manual command and control. When ADC realized that delays made the later 1950s a more realistic date for SAGE, the command augmented the AC&W pairs by five units, of which that at Andrews AFB was one, during 1954-1956. ADC renovated a selected group of the AC&W pairs for use with SAGE direction and combat centers into the early 1960s; this phenomenon occurred only at installations which housed both the first-generation AC&W pairs and the second-generation SAGE centers, and did not occur at these installations uniformly. Both AC&W command and control pairs, the type 3 and 4 buildings, and, the SAGE direction and combat centers, with ancillary power station, were aboveground structures, semihardened through their windowless, concrete-block (AC&W) and reinforced concrete (SAGE) construction. The construction typology likely reflected the AEC nuclear air blast studies done post-World War II and into the early 1950s on wood-frame, steel-frame and concrete-block/reinforced concrete structures, variously sheathed, at the Nevada test site (Glasstone and Dolan 1977:154-188).

Building 1419 is a two-story concrete-block and precast-concrete structure, resting on a reinforced concrete foundation, with reinforced concrete roof, and measures 74` by 116`11" with an 11`2" by 77`3" offset. Six- and three-bay historic elevations were without fenestration, articulated by a two-and-a-half-story offset tower on an end façade. The historic interior plan featured one of the earliest Cold War configurations designed for the U.S. military for a secured command and control facility intended to operate during and after a nuclear attack. On the first floor a small entrance lobby, with stairs to the second floor, was bracketed by air conditioning and mechanical equipment rooms, and, a maze of intricate, cubically arranged dressing rooms. The dressing rooms sequentially featured two dressing areas; a clean clothes storage area; two showers; two undressing areas; a contaminated clothes area; two inner-lock areas; two outer-lock areas; a vestibule; and an exit. The inner-lock areas and the undressing areas accessed four gas-proof clothes chutes. The entrance lobby led to a bisecting center hall, with balcony featuring a bank of observation windows, above, and exitlock areas at each end. The hall provided access to the 52` by 48`4" operations room; the first-aid room; and, bracketing the center-piece operations room, two clusters of offices. One office group included a weather room, a code room, a message center, storage and shop space, and an enlisted men’s room. The second office group included a switchboard room, a main-frame room, an operational personnel room, a briefing room, and a movements room. The second floor of the type 4 building wrapped around an open space above the operations room, with spatial divisions as small offices, including offices for combat operations and intelligence. In the tower, the first floor housed the teleprinter room; the second floor, the war room. The half-story capping the tower was vented to the outside. Special features of the type 4 building included gasproof doors, with small glass panels to visually confirm access to rooms; and chemical filter banks (Holabird Root & Burgee 1949b, 1949c; Peyton and Koval 1994:13-18).

Building 1420 is a combined one- and one-and-one-half-story, concrete-block and precast-concrete structure, resting on a reinforced-concrete foundation, with reinforced-concrete roof, and measures 145`1" by 34`5". Historically, some façades were partially sheathed in cement asbestos board panels. The bay rhythm established in the type 4 building, defined by precast concrete posts infilled with concrete block, is repeated here. A vented one-and-one-half-story tower articulates the windowless exterior, mirroring the design of the type 4 building. Historic interior spatial configuration is unverified. The structure may be a scaled-down version of the type 4 building, with parallel interior layout. The type 3 building is assumed to have had a more purely administrative function than that of the type 4 building, and is assumed from its less secured construction not to have been intended for use as a last-bastion combat center, as was the type 4 building.