Julie Decker and Chris Chiei, editors

The Anchorage Museum of History and Art in association with the Anchorage Museum Association

and the Alaska Design Forum, Alaska

Princeton Architectural Press, New York

Metal Living for a Modern Age

Quonset Hut

Preface Julie Decker x

Acknowledgments xii

The Hut That Shaped a Nation Julie Decker and Chris Chiei xv

How the Hut Came to Be Chris Chiei 1

Quonsets, Alaska, and World War II Steven Haycox 31

War, Design, and Weapons of Mass Construction Brian Carter 47

After the War: Quonset Huts and TheirIntegration into Daily American LifeTom Vanderbilt 63

The Huts That Wouldn’t Go Away:Alaska Adopts the Hut Chris Chiei 105

Quonsets Today: Concluding Thoughts Julie Decker and Chris Chiei 133

Appendix: Hut Types 148

Notes 150

Image Credits 156

Index 161

Contributors 165

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Portable architecture was the first fully man-made and inhabited form of architecture.Over millions of years, it has evolved and hasalso often been rejected in favor of perma-nent buildings. Today architecture and permanence are treated as synonyms. The Great Pyramids of Giza are listed as one ofthe Seven Wonders; medieval cathedrals arecelebrated in art history books. These struc-tures are admired because they are grand,and because of their longevity.

The first forms of architectureresponded to temporality and, often, portabil-ity, serving the mobility of nomadic peoples.Man’s earliest ancestors sought protectionfrom the elements and predators in naturalshelters such as caves and rock overhangs.Gradually, they learned to improve theircaves with inlaid stone floors, walls at theentrances, and fireplaces. But man was ahunter-gatherer and needed to follow hisfood. So man invented the hut—a small,humble dwelling of simple construction witha simple roof. Evidence of a wooden hut wasfound at Terra Amata near Nice in France,dating back to the Mindel Glaciationbetween 450,000 and 380,000 BCE. The hutincluded a hearth and fireplace and wasmade by bracing upright branches within acircle of large and small stones. Multiple-family huts from the Stone Age (ca. 10,000BCE) have also been discovered. Two huts atthe Kostienki site near Alexandrova in theUkraine accommodated the entire extended

family, one of them measuring more than ahundred feet in length and containing tensmall hearths in a row.

The basic hut then remained virtuallyunchanged for a million years. In the 1600shuts were still used all around the world. Thesheepherders of the Sahara Desert built newhomes every time their animals moved to anew place. Native Americans in the seven-teenth and eighteenth centuries wereexperts at building structures from readilyavailable materials that provided sophisti-cated, and sometimes moveable, shelter.Some nomadic Native Americans who inhab-ited the Great Plains lived in portable cone-shaped structures called tipis, from ti, whichmeans “dwelling,” and pi, meaning “usedfor,” in the Sioux language. The dwellingswere built by stretching tanned buffalo hidesaround a frame, which was made of long,vertical poles that leaned inward and joinedat the top. When the buffalo migrated, thetribes, following their food source, took downthe tipis; domesticated dogs dragged the tipipoles and the skin coverings to the next loca-tion—not an easy task.

The Iroquois tribes in central NewYork state, along the St. Lawrence River andthe northern shore of Lake Ontario in the sixteenth century and beyond, called them-selves Haudenosaunee (“People building alonghouse”). Several families lived in a long-house with separate family units connectedby a continuous passageway. Over time,

Introduction The Hut That Shaped a Nation

Julie Decker and Chris Chiei

Bomber pilots receiving

instruction from Col. W. O.

Eareckson, Umnak Island,

AK, August 20, 1942

xv

longhouses could be extended as needed,with new family sections added at each end.Some excavations of former Iroquoian townsites have revealed longhouses measuring aslong as four hundred feet. Longhouses werebuilt of saplings—large ones served as posts,flexible ones formed the rounded roof.

From the end of the last Ice Age to theearly nineteenth century, when lumber andmetal were favored for most structures, thebest-known temporary house type of theArctic region was the igloo, derived from theInuit word igdlu meaning “house,” a winterhouse built of the area’s most common mate-rial: snow. Snow is packed and cut intoblocks for stacking in rows in an upwardspiral. The spiral slopes inward toward thetop and is capped by a single block. Entry isthrough a short tunnel made of snow blockswith a rounded roof.

Of all the native dwellings of NorthAmerica, wooden plank houses of the north-west coast most closely resembled Westernarchitecture, combining aesthetic considera-tions in addition to functional ones. Built inthe eighteenth and nineteenth centuries oflong boards of cedar, the plank houses had arectangular shape with a sloping roof andfaced the sea or river. The direction of thefacade was a typological requirement for thedwellers because they wanted to face thewater, which was a source of life—providingfood and other basic needs—for them. Buteven plank houses were temporary, used onlyfrom fall to spring. In summer, when commu-nities moved into the forests for fishing andberry gathering, people removed the planksand carried them inland to make temporaryshelters there.

In the 1860s the Hudson BayCompany built a chain of retail stores inBritish Columbia and Alaska to serve minersduring the Gold Rush. In doing so, theyinvented a building form. The Hudson BayCompany building was a log structure calledthe Red-river Frame, which adopted the logcabin design that, rather than post-on-sillconstruction, used logs with dove-tail cor-ners that ran the full length of the wall. Thewalls were generally twelve to fifteen roundshigh, which, combined with a steep-pitchroof, allowed for a spacious attic, often usedfor the storage of furs and as sleeping quar-ters for the clerk. These buildings weredesigned to be erected in remote places.

In 1851, British engineers produced a building called the Crystal Palace, whichwas designed around prefabricated anddemountable modules. The Crystal Palacestructure was relocated from the site of the1851 Great Exhibition in central London toSydenham in Kent, where it was locateduntil its destruction by fire in 1936. Designedby gardener Joseph Paxton, the CrystalPalace has been called “proto-modern archi-tecture” and was widely imitated in Europeand the U.S. Though not unanimously cele-brated in its own time—it was nicknamedthe “glass monster”—it made pioneering useof cast-iron structure, prefabricated units,and an antecedent glass curtain wall. It covered nineteen acres of ground and waserected in just nine months, a feat thatwould have been unthinkable just a decadebefore. Even after one hundred and fiftyyears, this achievement has not been dupli-cated. Britain also innovated a smaller-scaleportable building in the nineteenth century.

Julie Decker and Chris Chieixvi

The Manning Portable Colonial Cottage wasthe first example of a mass-market, demount-able building. It was prefabricated, modular,relatively easy to ship, and easy to erect.These buildings were transported all overBritain and into North America, and werealso converted into prefabricated churches,hospitals, banks, and other facilities. NorthAmerica didn’t keep the Cottages for long—the model was abandoned in favor of designsdeveloped and sold via the Sears mail-ordercatalog, such as the Rudolph house plans(1930–32).

Then came the Quonset hut, a keyplayer in the chronology of portable,demountable architecture. The Quonset hutis not unlike its predecessors: for example, it resembled a longhouse, except thatQuonsets were metal-clad. But the Quonsethut was not considered architecture. Theywere created to service the military and thewar effort. Particularly after the stress of war,Americans wanted permanence and distancefrom reminders of the war. They wantedsome guarantees. Sure, a Quonset hut pro-vided needed shelter, but few people namedit as their first choice for housing. TheQuonset hut and its postwar cohort themobile home were economic solutions. Theywere less than the Dream.

While the world’s remaining nomadicsocieties still live in portable structures—Bedouin tents, Mongolian yurts (which onlytake an hour to erect or dismantle), Tuaregmat huts, and Cambodian “houseboats”—Americans do not embrace the concept.Motor homes, perhaps, but only if one canreturn to bricks and mortar after the drive.While a quarter of all new homes in the U.S.

are mobile homes, Americans have alwayswanted to see these types of structures, likethe Quonset hut, as temporary fixes untilsomething better came along. To keep themwould mean failure. After all, you can paint apicket fence on the side of a Quonset hut, butit still looks like a pop can lying on its side.

Today, however, it appears there mightbe a revival of appreciation for portablearchitecture. A wide range of forms and sizesare being used in mobile buildings. There arestructures that can seat ten thousand peopleand be erected and dismantled in days.There are tiny structures that celebratedesign at the same time that they celebratesimplicity and mobility. Although relativelyfew industry-produced portable buildingshave been designed for a dedicated userwith specific needs in mind, and fewer makeuse of design precedents (like the Quonsethut), recent advances in materials technolo-gy and construction techniques have refash-ioned and repopularized portable architec-ture. And with the demand for lower-costalternatives to escalating housing prices inthe U.S., many contemporary architects haveresponded favorably to this trend.

The Quonset hut is the portable build-ing that has dominated the twentieth centu-ry in the U.S. It may even be said that theQuonset hut is making a comeback, albeitwith a facelift. As leading designers todayhave increasingly incorporated new, low-tech, prefabricated, and portable structuresinto their architectural vocabulary, it is notpreposterous to suggest that, if inventedtoday, the Quonset hut would be given adegree of seriousness, respect, and perma-nence absent during its initial appearance.

The Hut That Shaped a Nationxvii

George A. Fuller and Company (hereinafterreferred to as Fuller) was one of the largestconstruction contractors in the U.S. Foundedin Chicago in 1882, Fuller led the construc-tion of some of the most important buildingsof the twentieth century, such as the FlatironBuilding (1902) in New York, an icon of earlysteel-framed high-rise structures, whichserved as their headquarters. Fuller also leadthe construction of a number of significantWashington landmarks, including theLincoln Memorial (1918) and the U.S.Supreme Court Building (1933). Fuller’s port-folio also includes significant modern iconssuch as SOM’s Lever House (1952), Meis vande Rohe’s Seagram Building (1957), andHarrison, Abramovitz & Harris’s UnitedNations Building (1953).2

The Merritt-Chapman and ScottCorporation (hereinafter referred to as Scott)grew from the mergers of three small salvageoperations, the Coastal Wrecking Company

(later reorganized as Merritt’s WreckingOrganization), the Chapman Derrick &Wrecking Company, and T. A. ScottCompany. Headquartered in New York City,they established themselves early on as lead-ers in marine salvage and wrecking opera-tions.3 Following the war, they were involvedin such projects as the Throgs Neck Bridge(1961), the Chesapeake Bay Bridge andTunnel in Virginia (1964), and the GlennCanyon Dam (1966).4

Together, Fuller and Scott took on theresponsibility for the construction of the baseat Quonset Point—their first joint-ventureproject. This 1,192-acre air station eventuallyincluded all necessary facilities for two air-craft-carrier groups and two long-range air-patrol squadrons, as well as facilities forcomplete plane and engine maintenance.Normally, such a project was given two yearsfor completion, but due to the urgent need for additional shore-based naval aviation

Chapter 1 How the Hut Came to Be

Chris Chiei

In 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, despite the isolationist sentimentwithin the population at large, began to prepare the United States for war.Congress authorized an increase in naval appropriation in anticipation, andthe Naval Board, in response, recommended the development of twenty-fiveadditional air bases, both in the U.S. and overseas. Included in that list wasthe shore-based aviation facility at Quonset Point, Rhode Island. The Navy’sBureau of Yards and Docks began construction on the facility on July 16,1940. The contract for this work, NOy-4175, was awarded to two organiza-tions—the George A. Fuller and Company and the Merritt-Chapman andScott Corporation.1

Isometric drawing of T-Rib

Quonset hut, May 10, 1941

1

facilities, the project was finished in less thanone year.5

While the base was being raised atQuonset Point, the British Royal Navy waslosing a large number of supply vessels toGerman U-boats. Convoys carrying suppliesfrom North America to Britain desperatelyneeded antisubmarine escorts, but RoyalNavy vessels were in short supply. In a boldstep to further break America from its isola-tionist position, President Roosevelt acted onhis own authority to negotiate the Destroyersfor Bases Agreement with Britain (1940). Theagreement included the transfer of fifty over-age U.S. World War I destroyers in exchangefor 99-year leases on British naval and airfacilities in the Bahamas, Jamaica, St. Lucia,Trinidad, Antigua, and British Guiana. Basesat Newfoundland and the islands of Bermudawere included as gifts. The President justi-fied his actions to Congress, stating: “It is anepochal and far-reaching act of preparationfor continental defense in the face of gravedanger.”6

Fuller and Scott were informed thatconstruction of the base at Argentia,Newfoundland, and provision of equipmentto other bases named in the Destroyers forBases Agreement would be added to thecontract already in place for the constructionof Quonset Point. The added value of workwould essentially double the original con-tract sum, reaching a projected cost of over$52 million.7

By March of 1941, the Allies werereaching financial crisis on all fronts.England declared that by June they wouldno longer be able to purchase supplies and

arms provided by the U.S. Bound by theNeutrality Act of 1939, the U.S. was not per-mitted to release arms to any warring coun-try except on “cash and carry” terms.Circumventing this legislation would provecritical to sustaining U.S. allies and would benecessary for continued preparation for whatappeared to be the inevitable involvement ofthe U.S. in World War II. President Rooseveltcrafted the Lend Lease Act, a bill empower-ing the president to “sell, transfer title to,lend, lease or otherwise dispose of [articles ofdefense to] the government of any countrywhose defense the President deems vital tothe defense of the United States.”8 The billalso empowered the President to set theterms of repayment as “in kind or property, orany other direct or indirect benefit which thePresident deems satisfactory.”9 With littleresistance from Congress, the bill passed onMarch 11, 1941. Seven billion dollars wereappropriated for its initial funding.

Soon thereafter, Great Britain trans-ferred ownership of properties at Garelochand Stanraer, in Scotland, and Londonderryand Enniskillen, in Northern Ireland, to beused by the U.S. as forward bases (FOB).10

Since material resources and local labor wereall but drained from the British Empire, theU.S. military had no other choice than tosupply prefabricated building systemsshipped from the U.S. to house their troops.Quonset Point was selected as the assemblyport for all supplies and materials requiredfor the construction of these bases.11

At that time, the base at QuonsetPoint was nearly complete and Fuller andScott’s work on supplies for Argentia was

Chris Chiei2

Pamphlet from Quonset Point

U.S. Naval Air Station,

ca. 1945

moving forward.12 Admiral Ben Moreell, chiefof the Bureau of Yards and Docks, called ameeting with representatives of Fuller andScott and Captain R. V. Miller, officer-in-charge of construction at Quonset, andrevealed the Navy’s desire to develop and pro-duce a new prefabricated hut system to shel-ter troops abroad.13 These buildings wouldneed to be designed for mass production, ableto be portable, erected and knocked downquickly and easily, adaptable to any climateand geography, and provide soldiers with themost protection and comfort possible.14 Themass production of these units and delivery ofall other equipment to these advanced bases(AOB),15 were added to the NOy-4175 con-tract, now under the title of TemporaryAviation Facilities (TAF). The project, nowestimated at $20.5 million, was officially set inmotion, and the first shipment of huts andsupplies needed to be ready by June 1.16

Fully aware of the deadline at hand,the contractors and the Navy moved quicklyto discuss possible locations for the massproduction and shipment of building units. Itappeared that there were no facilities atQuonset Point that could handle or housesuch a large operation. With the pier atQuonset Point nearing completion and therailroad spur linking the pier to WestDavisville, Rhode Island, now complete, thelogical solution was to place the factory out-side the existing base at a point along thetracks. This would allow raw materials toarrive via the adjacent New Haven railroadline and the completed units to be shippedacross land by rail and overseas by barge.

Designing the HutOn March 30, 1941, the Navy gave the offi-cial go-ahead to proceed with work on TAF.With an 85-acre tract of land purchased in

How the Hut Came to Be3

View from above: the

factory at West Davisville,

ca. 1942

West Davisville, Fuller’s Engineering teamdove into the design of a one-story factorybuilding. According to Fuller the “plans werequickly created, construction gangs wereorganized, production lines laid out, and stor-age areas developed. Within forty-eight hoursboth equipment and material were rollinginto the site. Nine days later the first portionof the plant was put into operation.”17

While factory walls were rising atWest Davisville, Fuller was assembling anarchitectural design team to work specifical-ly on the hut design. Otto Brandenberger, theonly licensed architect in the group, wasselected as the team leader. The other threemen, Robert McDonnell, TomasinoSecondino, and Dominic Urgo, would bedesign and production support.18

Brandenberger was, by all accounts, aleader. Born on March 9, 1894, he was thesecond of nine children born to OttoBrandenberger, Sr., a police officer, andLouise Knecht. He studied architecture at theZurich Technical Institute (several of his rela-tives had been architects) and, following hisolder cousin Ernest Strassle, also an archi-tect, immigrated to the U.S. in 1913.19

In 1917 Brandenberger enlisted in theU.S. Army in Philadelphia; he reenlistedthree years later and eventually attained therank of sergeant. During the Depressionyears, he worked for the Works ProgressAdministration (WPA), generating andreviewing architectural plans of historic NewJersey buildings and the Empire StateBuilding, respectively. He also designed afew residential and small-business buildingsin New Jersey before going to work for Fuller.

McDonnell described Brandenbergerand the Quonset design team as “a close knitgroup and each . . . was equally talented.”20

The four members of the team worked onnearly every phase together. McDonnelldescribed Brandenberger as the team’s trueleader: “We did what he told us to do. If any-body gets the credit, it should be OttoBrandenberger.”21

The team was directed to use theBritish Nissen hut as the starting point fortheir design. Invented by Lt. Col. PeterNorman Nissen (1871–1930) of the BritishRoyal Engineers, the Nissen hut representeda more suitable alternative to the tent inWorld War I as it could be used for a varietyof functions and was a bit more imperviousto weather. Though simple in concept, itsconstruction was more labor intensive thanwas practical at times.

The genesis of Nissen’s semicircularhut system is said to have been in 1916,while he was a soldier at a military camp inYpres, Belgium. Inspired by a similar struc-ture that enclosed a hockey rink at Queen’sCollege in Ontario, he drew a series ofsketches showing how the principles of thatedifice could apply to a military hut. Uponapproval of his ideas by his superior officer,Nissen was transferred to the Twenty-ninthCompany Royal Engineers’ general head-quarters where he began work on his design.After three major prototypes, input from hissuperiors, and modifications made after fielduse, a 16' x 27’, semicircular, steel-archedstructure with corrugated metal claddinginside and out was finalized. This hutbecame known as the Nissen Bow Hut.

Chris Chiei4

ABOVE: Otto Brandenberger,

ca. 1963; OPPOSITE: Otto

Brandenberger’s resume,

ca. 1953

How the Hut Came to Be5

Nissen also created a 20' x 60' hut known asthe Nissen Hospital Hut. More than a hun-dred thousand Nissen Bow Huts and tenthousand Hospital Huts were fabricated tosupport British troops during World War I.22

In some circles, these huts are believed to bethe first complete, mass-produced building.23

The Nissen hut was considered the leader ofhut technology used by either side in WorldWar I and was so successful that it becamethe only hut mass-produced by the Britishgovernment toward the end of the war.

Nissen was given full credit for hisdesign by the British Army and, as policypermitted, he patented the hut in numerouscountries including Great Britain, the U.S.,Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Russia,Argentina, South Africa, Belgium, andFrance. However, in the years that followed,disputes arose over the small royaltiesoffered by the British Government, who latersold these huts to other countries without theconsent of, or compensation to, Nissen.24

Brandenberger’s team used theNissen hut as their starting point. The Navyhad instructed them to comply with only two

conditions: the new huts had to be archshaped, for strength and deflection of shellfragments, and able to be quickly and simplyassembled.25 While factory walls were risingto house the production of the new huts, theteam worked around the clock on the devel-opment of the original version of the Quonsethut, later identified as the T-Rib Quonset.According to Fuller and McDonnell, the teamanalyzed Nissen’s design and immediatelyabandoned all but its general shape. Fullerclaimed, “The British had been on the righttrack but too many gadgets slowed erection;and with no insulation between inner andouter metal shells the Nissen huts were hotin the summer and cold in the winter.”26

Fuller’s assessment was correct, butFuller and McDonnell’s claim of an almostcomplete redesign of the hut is slightly exag-gerated; there were striking similarities inthe structural system and materials used inboth. Where Brandenberger’s team trulyadvanced beyond the Nissen hut was in thedesign of the hut’s interior. Both systemswere built from the inside out—first layingthe interior wall against the inner flange of

Chris Chiei6

LEFT: Men in Ireland erect

a Nissen hut, March 25,

1942; RIGHT: U.S. Troops

march by Nissen huts,

Ireland, February 1942

the T-Rib arch and then working out to thecorrugated metal exterior. The last version ofNissen’s design utilized an interior wall sur-face of corrugated metal panels with ribs ori-ented horizontally. The panels were strappedtight to the arch flange by metal cables runradially over the top. Corrugated metalstrips, nicknamed “the slide,” were also usedto join and seal one panel to the next. Thisassembly was deemed overly complicated byBrandenberger’s team. Furthermore, theinsulating qualities of Nissen’s hut dependedsolely on the air space remaining betweenthe inner and outer metal sheet. This mayhave been an acceptable solution for a warfought in the temperate climates of centralEurope, but it would not adapt itself well tothe arctic cold of Newfoundland or the desertheat of the Sahara. Brandenberger’s teamproposed a thin, lightweight pressed-woodlining of 3/16-inch Masonite held to the ribflange with a attachment clip, and then over-laid with a one-inch-thick layer of wadingpaper insulation. According to Fuller, the“new designs were worked out and experi-mental huts were made by hand, erected,tested, revised, and improved until, by thetime the first section of the plant was ready,a light, easily crated and easily erectedassembly had been perfected.”27 The firstknown construction drawings for the T-RibQuonset were submitted by Brandenberger’steam on April 4, 1941.28 Although the officialdrawing title read “16' x 36' Hut,” the con-tract correspondence accompanying thedrawing described the enclosure as a“Nissen type hut for Temporary AviationFacilities.”29

On April 10, 1941, the Bureau of Yardsand Docks, in the Partial Summary ofEquipment, officially authorized an order of2,488 “Nissen” huts for the Scotland andNorthern Ireland bases.30 Not long after,Lieutenant Commander E. S. Huntingtonincreased the order to 4,000 huts, then againto 8,000 huts. In order to keep pace with thegrowing requests for huts and the shorterturnaround time allowed to produce them,Fuller placed large quantities of buildingcomponents on order while design refine-ments were still being tested and approved.One production detail of particular concernwas the corrugated-metal siding of the hutexterior. The team wanted to orient the ribsof the corrugation parallel to the radius ofthe building as in the Nissen hut. This was alogical decision for shedding water, but aproblematic one for production. At that time,techniques for bending sheet metal in onedirection, as in the case of the corrugatedsheet, was commonplace. To bend that samematerial, once again, at an angle perpendi-cular to the first, required a level of con-trolled deformation that proved difficult toexecute. The problem was finally solved by aFuller subcontractor, the Anderson SheetMetal Company of Providence, who proposeda system in which the sheet metal waspassed through large rollers multiple times.Although the solution was a success, thesound generated from the process resulted inone of the least desirable work environmentson the production line. McDonnell recalled,“The noise it made! All kinds of torturedsquealing! You’d go bananas if you didn’tkeep you ears plugged.”31

How the Hut Came to Be7

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT:

Corrugated metal is run through

rollers at the factory for use on T-Rib

Quonset huts, Davisville, RI, ca.

1941; Factory workers and engineers

test build a T-Rib Quonset hut,

West Davisville, RI, ca. 1941;

Quonset huts ready to ship out by

barge from Quonset Point, ca. 1941;

Contract correspondence increasing

the order for Quonset huts (note

continued use of the term “Nissen

Hut”), June 21, 1941

A final set of construction drawingswas submitted by Brandenberger’s team onMay 15, 1941. All drawings were examined,approved by Captain Miller, and returned aweek later with signatures affixed, ready torelease for fabrication.32 These approvalsseem to have been a formality consideringthat the production line was already up andrunning.

On June 11, 1941, the vessel EmpireGull docked at the Quonset Point pier. A totalof 450,000 cubic yards of materials and sup-plies, of an estimated value of almost $1.2million, was prepared for loading. Includedwere a number of crates containing the firstrun of huts to leave the assembly line. In lessthan one month’s time, Fuller had created afully operational, mass-production facilitygenerating huts on a scale that representedan annual output of $22 million per year.33

Specialty HutsBrandenberger’s team subsequently adaptedthe T-Rib Quonset huts to specialized func-tions. Each specialized hut plan indicatedthe building modifications necessary to makethe conversion and the location of equipmentnecessary for that particular design. Includedwere provisions for interior partitions, dormerwindows, and concrete floors. Adjustmentswere made for huts sent to tropical climatesin the form of increased venting, water-collection troughs, and overhangs created byinset bulkheads. In the tropical unit, the oilheater and vent stack were replaced by athird ventilator. Additional components forspecialized huts were crated separately andshipped along with standardized units as

required. In total, forty-one design variations,including a dispensary/surgical hut, a labora-tory, laundry facility, pharmacy, dentalfacility, hospital ward, barbershop, morgue,guard house, and tailor shop, served a multi-tude of needs for the military’s forwardbases. Each hut cost between $800 and$1,100 to produce.34

In addition to specialized designs,numerous field modifications were commonlymade to Quonset huts once they arrived attheir destination. In Alaska, residual framinglumber was often used to create arcticentries, separate enclosed entrances thattrapped the cold air from entering theQuonset hut itself, while in the tropics,numerous configurations for venting andshading were adapted as necessary.Although the huts were conceived as struc-tures requiring no foundation, foundationswere sometimes added, varying greatlydepending on the slope of the site, the condi-tions of soils, the availability of local materi-als, and the urgency of construction. Whenbuilt as part of larger facilities, huts wereused in part, in whole, or in multiple units.Earlier versions rolled off the assembly lineunpainted; later versions would include afactory-applied coat of olive-drab paint. Toreduce the chance of being spotted from theair, most all were painted or repainted on-site to blend with the local landscape.35

Design RefinementsOn May 23, 1941, Admiral Moreell forwardedsix full sets of construction drawings of theT-Rib Quonset, under the heading “NissenHuts,” to the commanding general of the

How the Hut Came to Be9

Specialized hut design for a Tailor

Shop, October 15, 1941; PREVIOUS

SPREAD: Isometric drawing of T-Rib

Quonset hut, May 10, 1941.