St. Dominic's Church
San Francisco
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Do..._San_Francisco
It's such a long thread I hope this hasn't been posted before. The interesting thing is not the basic church building which was completed in 1928 in the Gothic style which was common for churches in that decade. But in the 1980s San Francisco began to look seriously at the seismic soundness of a lot of older public buildings and in 1984 determined this church would not withstand a 1906 magnitude quake without collapsing and possibly killing many people. The solution, which I love and which is why I'm posting it here, was the traditional Gothic one: In 1992 nine flying buttresses were constructed that rise from concrete piers deep underground and soar to connect at a ring beam that girdles the church at the roof line, a medieval concept that was found to be the best solution to a late 20th-century problem.