Metal Architecture

Metal starts to be used in the Architecture and the Civil engineering at the end of the 18th century and its rise, parallel with that of the Industrial revolution which conditions the production and the market of iron and of the cast iron, will be thus faster in England than in the rest of Europe, and will be slowed down by the Napoleonean wars.

It is initially used in reinforcement of the stone structures, for example by Jacques-Germain Soufflot for the construction of the the Pantheon of Paris, then for the bridges in England, for the frames (first example, the rebuilding of the cupola of the Corn exchange in Paris by François-Joseph Bélanger), the floors, the markets, the stations, the roofed passageways, the large houses of the World Fairs, all buildings of transit or transients, but, for cultural reasons, its use in frontage is extremely rare in the European cities, metal not being shown there, with the example of the canopy of the Large palace which will be hidden behind a stone frontage without structural role. The first buildings with cast iron frontages, after some examples isolated in the United Kingdom, are thus built in the United States about 1850, initially by James Bogardus in New York. Then it is in Chicago that by William the Baron Jenney constructions with framework will be developed out of steel allowing the first skyscrapers (first school of Chicago)

In Europe, the Art nouveau will try with the turning of the century a more visible use of iron and cast iron, but the parallel rise of the Reinforced concrete (developed of the reinforced concrete beams, in particular by the process Hennebique for the 1, rue Danton building in Paris in 1894) will stop these attempts.

In the United States where the tradition of the steel construction was essential on the place of the concrete irréversiblement, progress will be continuous and bring to the realization of the turns out of steel and glass of the international Style after the arrival of the architects of the Bauhaus driven out of Germany by the Nazis (in particular Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in Chicago - second school of Chicago). Continuous progresses in the architectural use of metals will allow until our days of the revivals stylistics and technological. The Architects after being itself felt exceeded by the technology and the situation of standardization of the building, will réaborderont it in the years 1970, with private individual for metal the architectural current High-Tech: Jean Proven, Renzo Piano, Richard Rogers, Norman Foster. At that time space takes form with geodetic and three-dimensional structures on developable forms and also nondevelopable (cubic architecture or architecture swell, “egg shell” hippie, saddle of horse), already known with the rammed concrete of the beginning of the century which became projectable concrete on reinforcements.

Then metal will allow the appearance of the complex forms of the Architecture deconstructivist (where one makes use positively of what was defect in the constructivism for example hyperstaticity of the structure) or the soft Architecture of the 21e century when the beautiful one is organic , therefore without right angle, neither in the sight of outside nor in that of the interior, a design which perhaps points out the sheet of acanthus of the Corinthian column and the fixed plants of the Art nouveau. The creation of the forms is based now either on the traditional esthetic values, canonical forms, but on the request for a beautiful new using the Conception computer-assisted, progress of manufacture of metal and those of the calculation of its settings of carrying structure. Data processing became necessary to the operation of the modern building in place which undergoes its constraints of environment (deforming expansion, effects of the wind, effects of the ground, lighting and temperature interns, etc) and completely puts at the shelter four elements the Man.

Great stages of metal architecture: remarkable chronology and works

  • tubular Structures

  • : Media library of Sendaï of Toyo Ito, 2002

  • -

  • : Amphitheater 3000 of the international City of Lyon of Renzo Piano, 2006

See too

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