Cal State Long Beach Recital Hall Roof Falls : Accident: No one was in the building, but earlier occupants were alerted by cracks and noises.

The roof of an 8-year-old recital hall at Cal State Long Beach mysteriously collapsed Monday morning, flattening two grand pianos and slamming tons of concrete and steel onto a seating area that can hold as many as 210 people.

No one was inside the Gerald R. Daniels Recital Hall--a theater used almost daily for concerts and lectures when classes are in session--when 90% of the concrete-reinforced ceiling caved in at mid-morning.

Just hours earlier, a group of five high school students had gathered at the theater for a Sunday evening music rehearsal. They were ushered away when a professor and sound engineer observed half-inch cracks in the plaster and heard strange creaks coming from the walls.

Police and firefighters who surveyed the damage said anyone sitting in the audience or performing on stage would have been crushed.

“People in the first three rows might have survived. Everyone else would have been history,” Long Beach firefighter Craig Vestermark said after emerging from the theater, on the north end of the campus.

Campus officials shut down two adjacent buildings that were constructed in the same style by the same architect and contractor. Administrators said they were also studying whether other buildings on campus might pose a danger.

“If we find some factor that gives us reason to think there’s a flaw in the method, we’ll do whatever necessary to protect people,” said William H. Griffith, vice president of administration and finance.

Administrators could not immediately determine how many buildings were constructed in a similar style across the California State University system.

The contractor who built the collapsed theater also constructed several other buildings in the state university system, including a student union at Cal State Los Angeles and an addition to the art building on the Fullerton campus.

However, Cal State Fullerton’s $2.2-million visual arts facility, built in 1979 by Shirley Brothers Inc. of Pasadena, is not of the same “tilt-up” concrete slab design as that used in the Long Beach theater. Sal Rinella, vice president for administrative affairs, said no such tilt-up structures have been used on the CSUF campus.

At UC Irvine, that construction style was used in the 3-year-old engineering laboratory. Vice Chancellor Leon M. Schwartz said Monday that officials would have a structural engineer inspect the Engineering Laboratory Facility in the wake of the Long Beach collapse.

“Three years ago, we did have an outside structural engineer inspect the building,” Schwartz said. “We will take another look at it.”

Campus police were borrowed from nearby universities Monday to stand watch over the buckled building in Long Beach. Heavy trucks were diverted off adjacent Atherton Street for fear that the slightest vibration would send the walls tumbling.

Administrators said hundreds of lives might have been saved by the timing of the collapse. The hall is used for lectures, rehearsals and about 250 musical performances a year. During a semester, as many as 800 to 1,000 people pass through on an average day.

Classes recessed in mid-May for the summer; the theater’s last major event was a June 23 fund-raising performance put on by a local arts group that drew about 20 performers and 100 spectators, campus officials said.

“At 10:30 on a Monday morning during the semester, we would have had a lecture class of about 100 people in there. We’re all grateful no one was hurt,” said Donald Para, chairman of the 325-student music department.

A team of inspectors--including the architect who designed the building and the structural engineer who helped erect it--examined the leaning structure from every angle Monday afternoon. They were at a loss, however, to explain why a building that opened its doors in April, 1982, would suddenly just fold.

A check of campus inspection records revealed no reported code violations of any kind. University officials said all campus buildings undergo annual inspections, although they could not say exactly when the theater was last reviewed.

“The trusses failed,” Don Erb, the structural engineer, said after touring the building. He would not elaborate on the cause, however.

“It’s quite an unfortunate thing. First time any building has fallen down that we’ve done,” said Donald Gibbs, co-owner of the Hugh Gibbs & Donald Gibbs architectural firm in Long Beach. The firm designed the recital hall as part of a $6.3-million office and theater complex built with state funds.

The Gibbs firm also designed the campus’ psychology building and is under contract as the architect for a new performing arts center scheduled for groundbreaking in October, said university spokeswoman Toni Beron.

The building’s contractor, Shirley Brothers Inc., has “a good reputation,” said Colleen Bentley-Adler, a spokeswoman for the state university system.

The contractor could not be reached for comment late Monday.

Gibbs called the building’s construction a conventional “tilt-up” style in which the concrete walls are poured, then hoisted into standing position. He said the roof was made of wood and steel and reinforced with a 3-inch slab of concrete for acoustical quality because the theater sits in the flight path of the Long Beach Airport.

Although it was said to be of top acoustical caliber and was a welcome addition to the music department, faculty members and campus workers said it and other buildings in the complex were plagued by leaking roofs.

“As I understand it, we’ve had some leakage problems but nothing that would be indicative of a structural problem,” Griffith said.

There was no significant damage to other buildings in the office and theater complex, which were to be closed and inspected, officials said.

Although no one expected such a dramatic collapse, several campus officials heeded warning signs of falling plaster and groaning walls throughout the weekend and alerted campus police. A music professor and a pupil were practicing Sunday when they noticed cracks and decided to leave the building.

Sunday night, sound engineer Martin Brenner was there with about five high school students when he noticed the cracks had spread. He sent the youngsters elsewhere.

A campus building superintendent who was dispatched to inspect the building Monday morning climbed onto the roof but left in a hurry when he heard more creaking. Technicians were called out and, within seconds, the roof came crashing down, pancaking two 9-foot Steinway grand pianos valued at $75,000 apiece.

The collapse triggered the sprinkler system, which soaked several timpani, bass drums and other instruments stored offstage, campus President Curtis McCray said.

He said the walls of the recital hall would be shored up so the debris could be removed and the building tested to determine the cause of the collapse.

“Trucks rolls by, airplanes fly over. . . . I don’t think the strains of Beethoven could have done this,” McCray said.

Campus officials were uncertain whether the building could be saved; some fire officials seemed certain it was a total loss.

“It’s wholesale,” firefighter Vestermark said. “That building is going to the ground.”

Times staff writers George Ramos and Kristina Lindgren contributed to this report.