Buckner Building, Military complex in Whittier, United States

The Buckner Building is a six-story reinforced concrete complex about 500 feet long and 50 to 150 feet wide in Whittier, Alaska. Its pale gray facade has a regular grid of small dark windows, many empty, and a metal exterior staircase zigzags down the central section. A lower three-story wing extends to the right.

The building was constructed in 1953 by the US Army Corps of Engineers to accommodate approximately 1,000 soldiers with living quarters and recreational facilities. It was part of the Cold War defense strategy in Alaska.

The nickname "city under one roof" came from the building's own mess hall, sleeping quarters, movie theatre, bowling alley and small jail, with tunnels linking it to Whittier. That model of a self-contained town later carried on in the Begich Towers, and residents still speak of what the Buckner Building once provided.

A fence built in 2016 surrounds the building to keep trespassers out, and the city owns it. The exterior can be seen from Whittier's streets; the structure stands at the base of a steep, forested slope. No entry is allowed because of asbestos, lead-based paint, PCBs, mold, and fuel residues inside.

The building runs northeast–southwest, oblique to the seismic motion of the 1964 earthquake, which further reduced the shaking it took. Its foundation sits on slate and greywacke bedrock, while most of Whittier rests on unconsolidated sediment.