Kansas City Hyatt Regency Hotel

Case 14 The Kansas City "Hyatt Regency" Hotel Walkways (1979-1981)... 

To design such walkways as those in the Kansas City Hyatt Regency means first to have a general idea of how to span the 120-foot space over the hotel lobby. If this was to be done without obstructions on the floor, then we can imagine how the skywalk concept arose. The idea was to get hotel patrons from one side of the lobby, where their rooms were, to the other side of the lobby, where meeting rooms and a swimming pool were located, without... 

Facts Hyatt hotels are known for their innovative architectural designs, internal as well as external. In May 1978, work began on a new Hyatt hotel, the 40-story Hyatt Regency Kansas City, in Kansas City, Missouri. The hotel... 

Consider the disaster at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, in Kansas City, on My 17, 1981. Two suspended walkways crowded with people collapsed in the lobby of the hotel, killing 114 people and injuring nearly 200. The cir-cnmstances are well described in Henry Petroski s important book. To Engineer Is Human (1982). The extensive investigations that followed... 

On July 17, 1981, during a weekly tea dance, two suspended walkways in the atrium area of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri collapsed, killing 114 people and injuring 185. The collapse was one of the most serious structural failures in the history of the United States. 

The hotel was renamed the Hyatt Regency Crown Center in 1987. It changed owners and was renamed the Sheraton Kansas City Hotel at Crown Center in December 2011. 

Figure 4.9. The lobby and atrium of the Hyatt Regency Kansas City Hotel afterthe skywalk collapse on July 17, 1981.

Figure 4.10. Original single-rod (R) and revised double-rod (L) box-beam connections, pedestrian skywalks, Hyatt Regency Kansas City Hotel.

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